GreenGiant

I get what you say, but a blog on an insurance company's website (albeit by an apparently well-qualified legal expert) doesn't count as definitive. The questions remain Who is responsible for enforcement? How can a law be enforced when nobody seems to know what it is or how it applies? A link to the relative legislation would be appreciated, thanks.

​I bet I still get overtaken by a nobhead in a Beemer...

A bit frivolous, but just to show I don't only rant for a living... I've signed up two deals this morning - first car to a Mr & Mrs Lacey. Then one to a Mr Cagney. OK, so it was the wrong way round, but you get the idea. It got me thinking...have you sold a vehicle to someone with an 'interesting' name? As it happens, I have, in the dim distant past, sold cars to two people with totally fabulous, unforgettable names, but I'm going to save them till I've seen what you guys and gals can come up with. Anybody?

I take it the nowhere-near-accurate £1000 valuation was done by Auto Trader?

So, how do these SPECS work then? You know, the yellow NPR cameras that are springing up around the motorway network, measuring your 'average' speed over set distances. You see, I'm beginning to wonder who the idiot really is. I originally thought (as per a rant a few weeks ago) that the right thing to do was to comply with the restrictions and obey the rules. And everyone else (usually driving either a van or a German-badged car) will deservedly pay the price for being stupid and ignoring the rules. But I can't find anyone that has had a ticket/fine/ban for contravening these 'average' limits. I also cannot seem to find how this system even works. So, I'd appreciate a bit of advice from some learned individuals please: I understand how the average speed is calculated from the timestamps taken when you pass each camera gantry, but where is the start and finish of the measurable distance? Is it the average between two specific cameras, or the average between the first and last ones you pass on your journey?How many drivers are actually issued with Fixed Penalty Notices or summonses for breaking these limits?Are these FPNs even enforceable? If you can prove that your actual 'average' speed for your entire journey is less than the limit imposed between two arbitrary points, surely you have a case?If your average between cameras A and B is over the limit, but between B and C is under, thereby making your average between A and C at or below the limit, then what?Why is there no information about this available anywhere? Apparently, the installers of the cameras are the only ones who know. This can't be right, can it?So, I'm beginning to think that I am, indeed, the fool for wanting to do the right thing by complying and when I laugh at all the drivers speeding by me on the M6/M3/A1 etc etc, in actual fact, as there is no penalty for doing what they do, the laugh is on me!

Where do I sign?

That is the real problem. It seems that AT have adopted the Ryanair approach and have decided that every single thing that they do has a cost attached and that cost must be charged out to someone. And the more they can break down the individual components in their product* (i'll come back to that), the more things they can charge for. Nothing for nothing. No extra levels of service to delight the customers, no altruistic gestures for the greater good of the industry. Just invoices. The bigger, the better. *this is the thorn in my foot. We pay them to work for us (the sellers) in providing a collective online portal where we can all advertise our products to our customers. At no point in that chain should they be attempting to control, influence or dictate how we interact with our customers and on what terms we choose to do business with each other. The changes they have recently made have a pernicious undertone that stinks of an attempt to control the market in a way that would benefit them, and to hell with everyone else. It's the thin end of the wedge in my view. If it's OK for them to tell our customers how much they should get for their car, how much we should buy, advertise and sell our cars for and how much we should make on each deal, then what is the point of us?

cba this week. Too much on.

And you should put your hand up before you speak, too.

Thanks Gavin, you've reiterated some good points... except for the bit where you try to tell us what we should and shouldn't say in an open forum. If you're not interested in the topic or the view expressed, you don't have to read it. But I don't think you should be telling people not to express an opinion because you don't want to hear it. 'Cos it's a little bit hypocritical to go on a forum and complain about people who go on a forum and complain. Don't you think?

I don't suppose anyone would be a bit surprised if they did it out of spite. The number of dissatisfied customers of theirs is astonishing. I spent a good hour yesterday reading through their own forum and cannot remember if there was a single contributor (non-A/T employee) that had a good word to say about them. It just seems to be an endless stream of angry dealers, sick of being dictated to by the Company that they employ! Bearing in mind that only a very small percentage of their customers actually use their forum, the actual number must be an opportunity for somebody to form a meaningful protest group. Here's the thing: If this was your company, and your own website/facebook page/twitter feed was rammed full of many, many customers telling you your business model was wrong, that your attitude sucks, you are arrogant and greedy, don't you thing you might want to have a little think about how things were going? Wouldn't you want to find out why so many customers were so unhappy? Or would you just ignore them, tell them they're wrong and keep crashing on to the next PR disaster?

Here's a price: £54.85 Not £44.85 Nor £40 Definitely not £30. Every vehicle that is driven on the public roads in this country needs, by law, 3 things that are compulsory. Road fund licence (road tax) Insurance And, where applicable, a current valid MOT certificate. Compulsory. VOSA have decreed that the cost of this MOT test is £54.85 This is the amount that they believe adequately rewards the establishments for the time/training/equipment that they have invested in, to carry out the tests. Why, then, have a multitude of MOT testing stations taken it upon themselves to drastically reduce the fee that they charge? Are they out of their minds? The insurance is offered by numerous different suppliers in a variety of flavours and is subject to fierce competition, but the Road tax is one price per vehicle. I don't see the Post Office undercutting the DVLA in order to nick a bit of business off them. I struggle to understand the mindset that comes up with a business plan to sell something that is a compulsory requirement, that has a nationally accepted fixed price, at a massive discount to remove any profit potential there may be. Have I missed something?

As i'm sitting with my feet up outside a bar overlooking the Med, the only thing that is really getting on my nippies this week is (surprise, surprise) Auto Trader. You see, they've only gone and done it again. They've made some pointless changes to a feature (Delta Point price comparisons) that was working OK (ish), called it something different and told us that they are now going to charge extra for it. But I'm almost at the point where I'm past caring and anyway, having a pop at them is like shooting fish in a barrel. Anyone with access to Dealer Portal can see on the forum how it has gone down with their paying customers (not very well). They clearly know best, I know nothing and as they have never had the good grace to publicly answer any of the criticisms levelled at them, they can just crack on into oblivion. Tesco mk2 stylie. Shame.

Hey, Auto Trader!! He's talking to you! Good question, Umesh. However, the only thing we ever learn from history is that we never learn anything from history.

I knoow, but they work on the assumption that we are. How is it that we have to abide by the 'Treating Customers Fairly' regulations, but the very authorities that are tasked with enforcing those rules (ie local councils) are the ones that are allowed to have our trousers down?

I'm off on my hollibobs this weekend, so only time for a quickie... (ooh matron!) Went in a Pay-and-Display car park this week. All good so far. The charges? 20p for 15mins. 80p for an hour. £1.50 for 2 hours. I scrabbled around the shrapnel pot in the car and found a £1 coin, 1 Euro and 10 US cents. For an experiment, I tried them all. The dime and the Euro were spat out immediately. The £1 coin was accepted and the display told me that I had paid for just 1 hour. I could add another 50p for the second hour if I wanted, but an hour was all I needed. There were no other options. So, there's another one to add to the list of Greedy, Greedy Boys. This car park machine can recognise every foreign coin on the planet, but can't give 20p change. It's sooo depressing when you know you're being ripped off and can do bugger all about it, isn't it?.

Good news indeed. It is a bit odd that they never told anyone though.

I actually have a driving licence. It took me quite a long time and a not inconsiderable amount of money to get it. I've never lost it, abused it or regretted it. I do wonder how I would get on if I had to get one these days, what with the theory tests etc, but that's not my problem. Lots of other road users have to have extensive training and gain certain qualifications in order to use our extensive road network and drive or ride certain types of vehicles upon it. Rightly so, as driving can be a dangerous and frightening thing. Which leads me on to the subject of this week's rant... ..no, not cyclists...... ...pedestrians. Yep, the walkie, talkie-on-my-mobile, not looking, not listening, oblivious to traffic pedestrians. When I was a nipper, we had Public Information Films that taught us important lessons about the big wide world. Road Safety was always a biggie. There was Tufty the squirrel (look right, left and right again) then we had Darth Vader doing the Green Cross Code (Because I won't be there when YOU cross the road..). Not to mention the fella doing the Clunk, Click every trip films... Like I said, not to mention him. Anyway, I know a normal High Street that has 6 sets of pedestrian crossings along it, each spaced between 150 and 180 yards apart. And yet, when driving along this road, people are darting out into the road to cross, irrespective of where they are in relation to the crossings. The worst culprits? People with children. This is how they are teaching the next generation about road safety: "You see the crossing just 20 yards away son? Good. Ignore it. If you want to cross the road, don't put yourself out and be safe by walking an extra few paces, just put your head down and run. All those drivers will deffo stop. And if one of 'em should get angry at you for running in front of him, just give him loads of verbal and threaten violence, because he was well-trained enough to see you and not kill you, so he deserves it." Seriously. This happened. And don't get me started on women with kids in buggies. Clueless is an understatement. But at least they're bright enough to push the buggy out first, so at least they don't get hit. So what happened? When did these people abandon common sense and become raving lunatics? Where do today's youngsters get Road Safety advice? From what I can see, it sure as hell isn't from their parents!

Cheapest way I've found is to get a car in Band A ie Zero Tax! Otherwise, the monthly direct debit costs a bit more but is easy to arrange and manage.

...I think I've just done this week's rant a few days early...

This archaic, misguided garbage is in today's archaic, misguided Mail on Sunday. And the woman who wrote it wasn't even joking. Unbelievable... "Visiting a car showroom can be a mixed experience. On the one hand, there is the excitement of buying a car. On the other hand, there is the misery of dealing with car salesmen (and they are almost always men). Smarmy, pushy and ultimately untrustworthy, these four-wheel pedlars have an awful reputation" And this from a Mail journalist... Anyone else see the irony?

So. I sat down to watch the Leaders' Debate last night. OMG. I gave it 20 minutes. What was the point of that? A few smug, shouty blokes having a pissing contest and some well-intentioned and intelligent women acting like they'd just been 'unfriended' on FaceSpace by someone from the WI. Loads of words spoken. Nothing actually said. The problem that they seem unable to grasp is two-fold: A very large proportion of the electorate will vote through their wallets - they (and I may include me in that) do not care who's in charge, as long as they become better off as a result. So no amount of posturing and talking over opponents and Soundbite Rhetoric will make any difference; if a vote for them means higher taxes, they ain't getting it. It does make a great deal of difference what you look like as a potential World Leader. This is about credibility. If (and it is a big If, but not beyond possibility) some cataclismic event should fall upon us from above, (Or below. Or the Near East, Far East or Middle East. Bacterial, chemical or meteorological. Natural or man-made. Whatever.) I want to know that the individual standing out front, protecting me and all that is mine from whatever is coming, can do the job. And strike fear into the enemy, whoever or whatever that may be. I want the next leader of this country to be someone I can depend on in a crisis. Not someone who reminds me of Mr Bean, Tim Nice-But-Dim or someone from the cast of Acorn Antiques. So, my rant this week is aimed at the Undecided Voters. Pick a Leader, not a policy. Yes the NHS and the economy and education are important. Always have been. And always will be. No Government will do too much to deliberately mess up what is already in place and working (just); they woudn't risk it. So those things will be fine. You might want to consider how some of those things went a bit wonky and who was in charge when they did. But in the long term, the Big Picture stuff is what's important. We are the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It says so on my passport. That means something. Something worth preserving and protecting. And I want somebody in charge who looks like they know that too and will do whatever it takes to keep it that way. And I don't want to pay extra for it. So, have another look at the candidates and see who fits the bill... ...nope, me neither. We're all doomed.

A few things have happened this week, on a personal level, that have involved trips to A&E, tests, wires, tubes, big electronic scanning thingies, sights and sounds of things you don't want to see and hear, and an opportunity to think about a lot of things. So. This week's rant is aimed fairly and squarely at............. me. Or, at least, people like me that spend too much time getting angry at strangers. We all do things differently, I get that, but what I also now get is that if your 'different' isn't the same as my 'different' that is all that it is - different. No need to pop an aneurism over it. Therefore, if the BCAs and Auto Traders of this world want to abuse their positions by overcharging their customers and providing shoddy service, that's their problem. They don't really give a toss about my opinions (or yours for that matter); they are too busy trying to find more devious ways of relieving us of our hard-earned. And good luck to them. If I don't like it, I'll go somewhere else. They'll still get rich. And I'll live a bit longer. Happy days.

Earnings of £136.1million on revenues of £237.7million Quote: Auto Trader holds a virtually unassailable position in the digital automotive marketplace, which analysts say through which there remains numerous avenues to squeeze more profits from the user base. Shall I just bend over and shut my eyes?

You're absolutely right. Except that I am not the only customer that has issues - I'm just the numpty that put his head over the top and cried 'Enough!' There are many, many subscribers to this organisation that have, quite frankly, put them where they are. There are many, many of those subscribers that are very unhappy with the changes, the attitude, the arrogance that is shown to them. I have asked them privately (via the rep, admittedly, but that is our point of contact) how they can justify charging more for less, I have asked them publicly on their own forum to tell everybody why they made the changes they made. And why they make changes without asking if we want or need them. No answers from anywhere. I understand it is their business and they can run it how they like. But it isn't just me that wants to hear it from the horses mouth - it's lots of people. So I get your point totally, James. I would be a tad more than frustrated if it was just one customer that I had hacked off and was trying to make things right. But this is lots and lots of customers. So they really ought to try and make all of them happy if they can. Look, if what i've said is wrong, I will apologise profusely, hang my head in shame and thrash myself with birch twigs. They just need to show me where I'm wrong.