From the category archives:

Motoring

As we emerge from the world financial crisis, conspicuous consumption is becoming slowly less fashionable than conspicuous poverty. It is, however, refreshing to see that not everyone is joining the ranks of the post-Veblenites, and are still content to flaunt their wealth. The entrance arch to one driveway in an upmarket Johannesburg suburb is a [...]

Denying the N-word

Rob Handfield-Jones July 1, 2010 Motoring

Every article I’ve ever read on the art of coping with life has included, at some point, a discussion on the issue of denial. I suppose denial is what makes our lives run better by removing the need to worry. The problem comes in when we deny the existence of real problems which can wreck [...]

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The business of demerit points

Rob Handfield-Jones June 17, 2010 Motoring

f you own or run a business with staff who need to drive in the course of their work, you will probably have read many articles on how the new points demerit system due to be implemented under AARTO will improve road safety. But how much have you read about its corporate impacts? From the [...]

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ESC knowledge gap creates risk

Rob Handfield-Jones June 9, 2010 Motoring

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve written about electronic driver assistance and its pros and cons. One thing I haven’t really touched on in as much detail as it deserves is the whole question of what exactly these systems do. I’ve discussed ABS previously, so let’s get stuck into ESC, starting with [...]

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ANC choking on own medicine

Rob Handfield-Jones June 2, 2010 Motoring

I rarely write about political parties and their relationship to motoring or road safety, simply because politics is the art of opportunism, where being in the right place at the right time (or having enough people vote for you) trumps competence nine times out of ten.  Sometimes an exception must be made though.

Photo credit: Shutr

Let’s [...]

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Pruning would give stronger laws

Rob Handfield-Jones May 26, 2010 Motoring

One of the best quotes I’ve ever heard from a politician came from the lips of Nick Clegg, newly-appointed Deputy Prime Minister of the UK, last week. “Excessive lawmaking merely makes criminals of ordinary people.”
Hear hear. I’ve always found it ironic that while the rule of thumb is “ignorance of the law is no excuse”, [...]

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FFOOTB (For Fear Of Offending The Bereaved)

Rob Handfield-Jones May 19, 2010 Motoring

There are subjects so sensitive that one almost dares not write about them, but this week I’m going to take the bull by the horns. My gripe is this:  some people think that having had a relative killed in a car crash makes them not only a road safety expert, but qualified to spout forth [...]

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Black boxes are coming

Rob Handfield-Jones May 5, 2010 Motoring

A recent report from the USA raised the possibility of legislation being introduced to make it compulsory for that nation’s cars to be fitted with “black box” data recorders. This would improve the ease of crash investigations, among other things.

Photo credit: Hamed Saber

The first – and almost immediate – response was from the civil libertarians [...]

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Less rhetoric from anti-finers

Rob Handfield-Jones April 29, 2010 Motoring

It’s one thing when municipalities exploit road safety enforcement for financial gain – they can cloak it under the blanket of caring for their citizens and, when all else fails, they have the weight of the law on their sides. The problem is that there are other organisations which started out with good intentions to [...]

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Defensive driving: here’s why

Rob Handfield-Jones April 21, 2010 Motoring

In almost ten years of this column, I cannot believe I’ve never set out the basic case for defensive driver training in a single article. If you’re a regular reader you’ll already be familiar with most of the key issues surrounding road safety, but it might not be completely clear why a private individual or [...]

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