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Car insurance cost at four-year low

THE COST of insuring a car has fallen to a four-year low as motorists benefit from a record 19% drop in average premiums compared with a year ago. The Confused.com car insurance price index, in association with Towers Watson, reveals the average cost of comprehensive car insurance in the first quarter stood at £596, a drop of £140 against this time last year. The figure, including a reduction of 7.5% on the previous quarter, means that average premiums have dipped below £600 for the first time since late 2009.

Hongik University wins 2011 Ferrari World Design Contest

Seoul's Hongik University scooped first place honors in the 2011 Ferrari World Design Contest. 50 highly prestigious universities developed designs for Ferrari's cars of the future, and students from the Korean school beat the second-placed Istituto Europeo di Design (IED) of Turin, Italy, in the final while London's Royal College of Arts (RCA) finished in third place. The ‘Eternità', developed by Kim Cheong Ju, Ahn Dre and Lee Sahngseok, was the winning design for Hongik University, while Azerbaijan's Samir Sadikhov, studying at IED, earned him second place with the ‘Xezri'.

'Paradox' in transport policy claim

THERE IS A "paradox at the heart" of the Government's roads programme, a transport policy professor has told MPs. The question on whether traffic levels would increase or decrease in the future was unresolved, University College London emeritus professor of transport policy Phil Goodwin told the House of Commons Transport Committee. The paradox was that if traffic levels increased the planned roads programme was "not big enough to make an improvement", he said.