Smart Fortwo / Smartcar 2007-2014 Throttle Body 1.0l Petrol A1320700027 on 2040-parts.com

11 excuses cops have already heard

"Everyone else was doing it," and "I had to go to the bathroom" extend beyond excuses used in a kindergarten classroom -- they actually top the most common excuses drivers use to get out of a ticket. Insurance.com surveyed 500 licensed drivers age 18 and over in February 2013 to find this list of top excuses we use when getting pulled over. 20.4 percent of drivers have tried: I couldn't see the sign telling me not to do it.

Churchill’s Land Rover sells for £129,000

A Land Rover presented to Sir Winston Churchill on his 80th birthday has sold at auction for £129,000. Sir Winston Spencer Churchill, probably the greatest Prime Minister the UK has ever had, was 80 in 1954, prompting Rover to present the great man with a custom Land Rover so he could be chauffeured round his Chartwell Estate. The Series 1 Land Rover came complete with an extra wide passenger seat, big, padded centre armrest and leather grab handle and had the registration UKE 80 which may (or may not) have referred to Churchill’s age and ‘United Kingdom Empire.

Storms batter Britain

THE MET OFFICE has issued a "red" weather warning for exceptionally strong winds in western parts of Wales and north-western parts of England, while the Thames is predicted to rise to its highest level in more than 60 years in some places. On the day dubbed Wild Wednesday, gusts of 108mph hit Aberdaron on the Llyn Peninsula in north west Wales, while 96mph winds were recorded off the south coast of England at the Needles, on the Isle of Wight. The Met Office has forecast 2.75ins (70mm) of rain by Friday in the already-sodden West Country - more than the region would normally get in the whole of February - with south Wales, western Scotland, Northern Ireland and other parts of southern England also expected to bear the brunt of the deluge.