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First-year vehicle excise duty is a fraction of that in countries such as France and the NetherlandsLow taxation on petrol SUVs in the UK compared with much of Europe is inviting a glut of large, polluting luxury cars, according to an analysis by a green thinktank.The tax paid when buying a new petrol or diesel SUV in the UK is only a fraction of...

‘Poverty premium’ penalises drivers who cannot pay one-off lump sum, say campaignersCar owners who pay for their insurance monthly rather than with a one-off lump sum are being charged interest of more than 30%, research has found, in what has been described by campaigners as a “poverty premium”.Insurers give customers the choice of paying one annual premium or breaking it up and paying over...

Government had rejected campaigners’ demands for new safety measures on basis of outdated researchThe government is reviewing quad bike safety regulation in what campaigners described as “an embarrassing climbdown” after ministers repeatedly claimed that the introduction of roll bars could do more harm than good.Ministers had previously said that research by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) showed that roll bars could increase the...

The infamous A30 summer holiday bottleneck will go when eight miles of dual carriageway opens in March. But for some, the cost is too highAs cars and lorries snail interminably along the A30 in Cornwall – the county’s notorious trunk road – the words of the furious driver in John Betjeman’s poem, Meditation On The A30, seem befitting: “I can’t go on crawling like...