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Showing posts with the label motorists

Motor Sports, Demon Tweeks and the Modern Hobbyist: Preparing the Vehicle for Racing

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The world is full of motor sports enthusiasts racers; detailers; and car preparation geeks whose central joy is the creation and performance of surprising machines. There's a lot of colour and power in these quite focused worlds, all of which have their own shorthand and their own special vehicles. Places like Demon Tweeks (and this is not the only one, by far), which supply the materials and the knowhow to serve the race enthusiasts, exist at the heart of the hobbyist's world. To understand the products provided by the hobbyist centres, you first have to understand something about the world in which they exist. There are two core concepts at the heart of the racing world: speed and safety. Speed is the ultimate goal of all racing preparation. It is, in itself, served by a nested set of sub-concepts all goals that the detailer or tuner wishes to achieve in order to serve the overall prize of attaining greater speeds without sacrificing safety. Performance, for example, wh...

Do Higher Fines Really Work to Reduce Your Speed?

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The government is planning to increase speeding fines by more than 66 per cent from £60 to £100. At a time when many people in the UK are experiencing financial hardship, the proposal has puzzled many motoring experts. Excessive Speed Speed is one of the main causes of injury on roads throughout Britain. Claims for whiplash compensation often result from accidents in which motorists have driven too closely to others at excessive speeds and government officials are keen to reduce the impact of compensation claims on the UK economy. Curbing speed, it is thought, should help to reduce accident rates. Deterrent or Disingenuous? Justice Secretary Ken Clarke estimates that raising fines for speeding motorists will generate an additional £30 million every year. The money, he argues, could be used to compensate crime victims. However, a victim's surcharge of £15 is already levied on offenders who are fined in court and there has been no suggestion that the surcharge will be altered t...