News in brief - Wheels Within Wales

A convoy of Vauxhall cars and vans from the present day back to the 80's, 70's and 60's will drive by Parliament today to showcase the best in British car manufacturing.
The vehicles, all produced Vauxhall's plants at Ellesmere Port and Luton, are being driven to the capital by workers from both factories, as talks continue over the future of the car manufacturer in the UK. The convoy will include the Astra, which is currently produced in Ellesmere Port, and the Vivaro which has been produced at Luton for the past nine years.
The drive-by is being organised by Unite, the union which is pressing for any sale of GM Europe and its UK subsidiary Vauxhall to safeguard the future for both plants. Between them, they employ 5,000 skilled workers with some 20,000 more in the wider components and supply chain also depending on the plants for a living.

The BVRLA has urged the Department for Transport to be more ambitious in its attempts to reduce the number of people killed and seriously injured on Britain's roads.
Responding to a DfT consultation on improving road safety beyond 2010, the association has asked the government to increase its goal of cutting the number of deaths on British roads by one-third by2020.
"Given the immense progress already made by all sectors of the road-user community, we believe that a reduction of 40pc is achievable by 2020," said John Lewis, chief executive of the BVRLA and chairman of the work-related road safety group Driving for Better Business.
In its response, the BVRLA has highlighted the use of more road safety technology and standards for driver training as areas where the DfT can make significant progress.

More than two-thirds of British drivers (69 pc) admit to having engaged in some form of potentially dangerous activity whilst driving in the last month, according to new research from Sainsbury’s Car Insurance.
This is a 4 pc increase on this time last year. Eating and drinking whilst driving is the most prevalent dangerous habit, with 43pc of motorists questioned admitting to having done this in the previous month. This is followed by driving whilst feeling tired (32 pc), which has increased from 28 pc last year, excessive speeding (17 pc) and driving wearing flip flops/no shoes (14 pc).
Despite it being illegal to use a non hands-free mobile phone whilst driving, 12 pc of motorists surveyed said that they did this in the previous month and 11 pc admitted to sending text messages whilst driving. Eleven pc of drivers questioned admit to reading a map whilst driving.

Nissan announced the development of a Dual Injector system designed to improve fuel efficiency in small-displacement gasoline engines.
The new fuel delivery system, the first of its kind in the world, uses an injector for each port rather than one per cylinder - speeding up fuel vaporisation, reducing the amount of unburned fuel and reducing hydrocarbon emissions. Nissan will introduce the new system in production vehicles starting early in fiscal2010.

Porsche may hand over its Volkswagen AG options to Qatar for free to remove liabilities tied to the derivatives and clear the way for investments from VW and the Persian Gulf state, says Bloomberg.
Qatar would then pay about 5 billion euros ($7 billion) to banks who sold Porsche the call options. Qatar would get shares equal to 20 percent of Volkswagen, Europe’s largest carmaker. Porsche may get a nominal payment from the transaction, the people said.