Articles by Stephen Corby

The world’s desperate need to use less oil and produce less stinky, choky emissions has led to inventions large and small.

There's something just a little bit kindergarten about the whole demerit-points thing, only without the good parts - the six-hour days, tuck-shop lunches, being allowed to wee in your pants if you feel like it, and the gold stars. The police don't give you gold stars for good driving, of course, they just take them

What is Blind Spot Monitoring?

If you thought the worst thing your dog could leave in your car was a furious hair tornado that coats every surface, think again.

Outside of the rarefied air of supercar world, where Lamborghini still insists that naturally aspirated engines remain the most pure and Italian way to produce power, and noise, the days of building c

"Drive away, no more to pay"? Well, you'd kind of hope so, wouldn't you? Once you've driven the car out of the dealership you don't really expect to pay for anything more than fuel and funding the lives of traffic-light windscreen washers.  But then, so many advertising phrases make little sense - "I bought a Jeep

There are some things you can do when you're on holiday that you simply can't at home, because the shame can't follow you back. Men can ride scooters or drink cocktails or even sing karaoke, as long as they are far enough from their friends to be seen doing so. Women can... already do all those things, but they can commit crimes against fashion, or wear Ugg Boots outside, or drink beer.Because Australia is so large, just going interstate can be far enough to do things you wouldn't dream of, but speeding is not one of them, because, unlike the United States, our states are actually united as one ball-breaking nation in their approach to punishing your driving indiscretions, which means that someone caught speeding in Perth will pay for it with points on their NSW licence when they get home. Eventually. Probably. In theory.It didn't used to be this way, of course, and there was a time when a Victorian walloper would look at your Queensland licence and hiss through his teeth with disappointment, as he knew he'd never realistically be able to pursue you across state lines, but if there's one thing that governments of all stripes, and all states, agree on, it is that speeding fines, are a great way of raising revenue, and crushing the public under the boot heel.The Australian Road Rules Agreement was concocted and approved by all state and territory Transport Ministers in 1999 to make sure that there was some national conformity, and that the Demerit Points Schemes operated by various regions would work in an interconnected national fashion.In short, no matter where you commit an offence, the officers who catch you are supposed to contact your home state's authorities and inform them, so that the appropriate Demerit Points can pile up on your licence back home.As the sa.gov.au website helpfully points out for its residents: "Demerit points are incurred whether the offence is committed in South Australia or interstate."One trap to watch out for is that if you think you want to challenge a fine you've been given in court, it might be implausibly expensive to do so. Get pinged by an overzealous and unreasonable copper in WA and attempt to challenge the matter and they'll tell you you have to show up, in person, in a Perth courtroom to fight your case, which will clearly cost you more than the fine if you live in any other state.Interesting anomaliesWhere things get interesting is that incurring one particular offence in one state might be worth less points, or a shorter suspension, in your home state. The state in which you've recorded the offence will generally advise your home regulatory authority of your crime, and you will then get the points or suspension that would have applied if you'd committed the offence in your own jurisdiction.VicRoads, for example, will suspend your licence for six months if you are caught driving between 35 and 45km/h over the limit (if they don't just shoot you on the side of the road), but this same crime is only a three-month sin bin in NSW, so you might be better off than a local.If you're a Victorian and you get caught in NSW doing the same thing, however, it's probably not going to be a better a result for you.If you're in NSW, you also have 13 points rather than the 12 you get in Victoria, and other states.Anecdotally, however...Here's the strange and hard to quantify thing. Anecdotally, people who look nothing like your author and definitely don't share a driver's licence with him, tell us that the system is, shall we say, imperfect.Many are the sinners who tell us they have committed a speeding offence in a state other than their own and, surely enough, been followed home by the fine, and forced to pay it by annoying red-coloured notices in the mail. The demerit points, however, have not - or not always - turned up on their licence.This seems to particularly apply to residents of the territories. ACT and NT drivers can somehow, magically, avoid being demerited for offences they incur elsewhere. And it can happen to drivers from other states as well, particularly if they commit their crimes in the Territories.It's hard to explain how this happens, or doesn't happen, but someone in the field of policing used the phrase "paperwork" closely followed by the words "too hard" to offer one theory.This is not, in any way, a suggestion that you'll get away with such a thing, it's merely a strange anomaly that we've noted anecdotally and, under the law, your demerit points will follow you, and haunt you, no matter where you rack them up.So beware, be square and be safe.

It takes less than 30 seconds to see what all the fuss is about with ISOFIX child seats, and why some people have been campaigning for years for them to be made legal in Australia.The first thing you notice is how easy the seat is to fit, with its metal rails poking out the base and slotting simply into the ISOFIX connecting points that have previously sat fallow in many cars in this country.Holden even bravely launched the VF Commodore in 2013 with ISOFIX points, despite the fact it was still illegal to buy a seat until late last year.After years of struggling with the seatbelt-retaining system of traditional seats, which can be about as challenging as tieing your shoe laces with your eyes closed and cheese graters on your hands, the ISOFIX system is a revelation.You immediately appreciate just how incredibly rigid the ISOFIX seat system feelsThat simplicity also means that, as the new seats are snapped up by Australian families, the appalling number of child restraints that are incorrectly fitted - estimated to be more than 80 per cent at present - will fall sharply.The other thing you immediately appreciate is just how incredibly rigid the ISOFIX seat system feels by comparison, with virtually no lateral movement compared to the older seatbelt-fitted design.Mike Lumley, the Technical Director for Britax Safe and Sound, which finally started selling ISOFIX seats here last October, says the system is simply "far superior".You quite literally feel like a better parent just using one"In terms of lateral movement in a side impact, and also forward movement, you simply can't make a seatbelt hold the same way as a rigid connection," he explains."There's also no doubt that the ISOFIX is a more intuitive system, when it comes to fitting one in your vehicle."Here at CarsGuide.com.au we've been road testing a Britax Trufix (RRP $499) for two months now, and every time we install it in a new car we're struck again by how much more solid, and thus much safer, it feels.Standards Australia has been working on introducing a local standard for ISOFIX since 2002You quite literally feel like a better parent just using one, which makes us wonder why we put up with the old system for so long.Mr Lumley explains that it was all about a difference of opinion between Australia (and our friends, Canada) and the rest of the world over whether a system anchored rigidly to the car should still have a top tether attachment as well."Standards Australia has been working on introducing a local standard for ISOFIX since 2002 and ultimately the decision was made by the Department of Transport that there should be further testing, which delayed the introduction here...for quite a while," he says."There was testing done that showed the two point rigid connection at the base plus the top tether was the best performance, but the Europeans decided it was too difficult and went without the top strap."After what seems an inexcusably slow bureaucratic process, a ruling saying we should be allowed to use ISOFIX was published in 2013, but it still took until September 2014 for that to be made official.The result is that, unlike Europe, our ISOFIX seats must have a top tether fitted as well, which reduces the possibility of rotation and provides, according to Mr Lumley, the best of both worlds.Almost 80 per cent of sales are now ISOFIX"It's logical, you have something retaining the bottom of the seat, so you should have something restraining the top as well, and Australia has been saying that for a long time," he says.The market reaction, particularly from people who've been waiting for years for ISOFIX to be available, has been swift, according to Britax's marketing manager, Narenna Bloomfield."We relaunched our Platinum SICT with ISOFIX ($659) and without ($629) in October...almost 80 per cent of sales are now ISOFIX, demonstrating that families are keen to adopt the new installation method," Ms Bloomfield says."Anecdotal feedback has also been that even if consumers do not have ISOFIX they may plan to purchase a vehicle equipped with ISOFIX in the future, and therefore are more willing to buy an ISOFIX car seat now."There's no question that most people in the market for a new seat who compare the two fitting methods directly will plump for the ISOFIX, but the law won't require them to.The availability of ISOFIX chid seats is a huge, and much welcome, step forwardUnder the ADRs it is still legal to sell cars here without the ISOFIX fitting points in the back seats, and the seatbelt-restrained versions are also likely to remain on the market for the forseeable future."Although there have been European vehicles sold here with ISOFIX lower anchorages for many years, it could take 10 or 20 years for most of those vehicles that didn't have the anchorages to move out of the Australian fleet," Mr Lumley explains.It may have been a long time coming, but for the safety of our youngest car occupants, the availability of ISOFIX chid seats is a huge, and much welcome, step forward.

The way we measure things, effectively, keeps us all from going bonkers.Think of money, for a start, and how annoying it is that there are so many currencies. Wouldn't it be easier if there was a single, global dollar? (mind you, that would make it easier to notice how expensive things are in Australia)Much of Europe realised this some time ago and attempted to bring in a single currency, the Euro, to make life easier. The English, of course, held on to their pound, which is the world's oldest currency that's still in use, and refers, originally, to the equivalent of one pound weight of silver.Generally, we all manage to agree on most measures, although a few standouts hang on to miles over kilometres, just to be irascible.Things like wheels, however, are measured in inches, and anyone who tries to convert a 20-inch wheel to centimetres will be deeply scorned by their car enthusiast friends for evermore.The car world needs to agree on these things to make life easier for customers, who obviously spend a lot of time researching their car-buying decisions and need to be able to make like-for-like comparisons, which is why if some car companies decided to quote fuel economy in miles per gallon rather than litres per 100km, we'd all go mad. Dogs lying down with cats, fire from the skies, proper disaster stuff. At least in the world of cars.Which is why it's so strange that the boot volume of new vehicles - a singularly important figure for anyone buying a car, and even more so if they have children/prams/bicycles/dogs, etc. - is measured in different ways.To make it more confusing, each of those different ways seems to use the actual unit of measurement - litres - and yet comes up with different figures.Some car companies - Mazda, Honda, Toyota, Kia, Hyundai, Citroen, Audi, BMW - measure boot volume using something called VDA, which is short for Verband der Automobilindustrie, which translates as the German Automobile Industry Association.Being German, it's both exact and exacting, as you'd expect, and is carried out using blocks of wood measuring 200mm x 50mm x 100mm.Grab your phone's calculator and do the math if you like, or simply believe us when we say   that this adds up to 1,000,000 cubic millimetres.A maths teacher might be able to explain to you that 1cm cubed has the same volume as 1 millilitre. So 1,000,000 cubic millimetres works out as one litre.So, if you can just stop rubbing your forehead and groaning for a minute, you can take it as read that each of these blocks of wood is the equivalent of one litre of boot space, so if you count up all the blocks that fit into a load area (and what a wonderful, giant game of Jenga that must be), you'll get the VDA number of any given car boot in litres.Fortunately, car companies will just tell you this number, so you don't have to do it yourself.Mazda Australia, which is a fan of the VDA system, tell us that, "in practice this would be simulated by computer, not with physical blocks," which is a relief."The reason for using blocks is to prevent overstating luggage capacity due to irregular shaped luggage compartments," a helpful Mazda spokesperson adds. Intrusion from boot hinges as you shut the lid are another argument in favour of VDA measurement.Now, if everyone agreed that VDA was the one and only way of measuring luggage space, then you'd have some chance of understanding how it's done, but sadly some people prefer a standard called SAE, which stands for Society of Automotive Engineers, one of those US-based organisations that considers itself "International". Their system uses smaller blocks, so you end up with a larger litre figure - or liter figure - which sounds more impressive.Or, if you check with Jeep or Dodge you'll get the SAE Cargo Volume, measured in cubic metres (a Jeep Cherokee offers 0.7, with rear seats up, good luck making sense of that).And, to make things worse, other companies, like Holden, Ford, Nissan/Infiniti, Peugeot and Renault - simply quote their boot volume in "litres". We'd like to imagine they work it out by pouring four-litre tubs of ice cream into a car boot until it's full and then counting the empty containers, but this seems unlikely (at least outside of the US).In short, outside of those companies that helpfully agree on using the VDA method - and surprisingly even the Japanese seem to believe that, in this case, the German way is the best - it can be extremely confusing to compare one car's luggage-carrying space with another's.One man's litres, it seems, are not always the same as another's, and working it out yourself - unless you're Stephen Hawking - might well do your head in.So here's our advice. If you want to compare a car that doesn't specify whether its boot volume is measured in VDA, call the local dealer and tell them to do the conversion for you.Or, if you're more practically inclined, knock yourself up a few timber blocks of 200x50x100mm dimensions and pop down to the dealership to do it yourself.

There are many, many things you can argue about when it comes to cars - Holden vs Ford, turbocharged engines vs naturally aspirated ones, Volkswagen vs The Truth - but there are a few inarguable facts