Taxi drivers are used to paying around $7,800 for a green slip, compared to private motorists, who pay around $700. Since Uber and GoCatch entered the “point-to-point” market, private motorists pay the lower price while using their cars for ridesharing. Now there will be a new price for frequent drivers.
Your car spends about 95% of the time sitting in a garage – yours or somebody else’s – and only 5% of time doing the work it’s designed for. It’s surprising that we so readily accept paying so much for something that just sits around. What if there was no such thing as car ownership?
Extreme weather is a fact of life in Australia and recent East Coast storms hammered people and property. A few unlucky ones have tried to drive through a dangerous flash flood and lost their lives.
If you thought there were more caravans on the roads these days, you were right. The fastest growing registration type – 5% per annum for 6 consecutive years – is caravans and campervans.
It’s one of those things you’d rather not have to do, but everyone must renew their drivers licence. In the old days, you had to find the nearest registry, take a ticket and wait for your turn for a photograph and an eye test. Things have changed – now you can renew your licence online.
How many drivers these days have a tattered copy of the local map book in their glove box? Chances are you are one of many motorists in Australia using car navigation systems or satnavs. But do you find your satnav distracting? Do you find you have to stop talking to your passengers so you can follow its instructions?
If the future of driving is self-driving cars, then what’s happening now? Car manufacturers are introducing all kinds of clever ideas to entertain and protect drivers – and pedestrians too.
Our greenslips.com.au poll, Is common courtesy lacking on our roads?, received a resounding 88% Yes. But the poll didn’t ask about incidents of road rage. Anecdotal evidence suggests drivers everywhere are becoming increasingly less patient and a lot more aggressive.
It’s illegal to drive unregistered or uninsured, over the speed limit or under the influence of drugs and alcohol. What if it were illegal to drive at all?
All over the world people have had original, sometimes quirky, ideas about how to slow us down on the roads. England uses smileys, France creates cardboard cut-outs to represent fatalities, India is trialling virtual speed bumps.