Political wriggling

South Korean politicians are squirming after the return of fugitive businessman and former Daewoo Motors chairman Kim Woo Choong to Seoul. They fear that Kim may confess to bribing key political figures while struggling to find loans to keep Daewoo Motors and its parent Daewoo Group afloat in 1997 and 1998. When the companies foundered, Kim disappeared in October 1999 after attending the dedication of a car-parts plant in China. He hid overseas for more than five years until he flew in from Vietnam last week and was later arrested. Korean police say Kim, 68, has admitted he directed employees to inflate corporate assets by billions of dollars in order to obtain billions of dollars in loans fraudulently from government-controlled banks.

Driving force

Chrysler in the United States is trying to lure buyers by sponsoring driving events teamed with lifestyle activities. The carmaker is planning an eight-city driving tour that includes food-tasting, golf-swing analysis and cigar rolling. Such events are good for the brand, says Chrysler, because buying rates increase when a customer test drives a vehicle. As an extra nudge, participants receive a US$1000 ($1397) discount on a new vehicle. Prospects who test-drive a vehicle are three times more likely to buy than those who do not test-drive, Chrysler research shows.

Taxis go hybrid

San Francisco reckons it is the first city in the US to have a fleet of fuel-thrifty hybrid taxis. The petrol-electric four-wheel-drive Ford Escapes are expected to consume two-thirds less fuel than regular cabs. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom says the city is showing social responsibility by adding the 15 hybrids to the taxi fleet.

Speed camera wrong

A school bus driver in Britain facing prosecution for driving through a 50 km/h village zone at 130 km/h won't lose his licence - because the bus computer management system showed he had been doing 48 km/h. The speed camera operator blamed technical and human error. The bus driver, Trevor Martin from Ipswich, says he was relieved to escape the speeding charge but says his innocence would have been harder to prove had he been driving a car.

Jaywalking costs $75m

Jaywalking pedestrians in Britain are responsible for causing around $75 million of car damage each year, says road safety research group YouGov. The worst offenders are the Scots, who regularly run in and out of traffic. There's been an increase in the number of pedestrians who dash across busy roads away from marked crossings. Researchers say the reason for this upsurge is because people lead busier lifestyles and have growing impatience.

Flat white in a Fiat

Fiat branding chief Lapo Elkann is trying to get Europe's young trendies into the Italian carmaker's products by opening cafes bearing Fiat nameplates. There is the Panda Cafe in Spanish capital Madrid and the Fiat Cafe in Milan. Elkann is the grandson of the late Fiat chairman Giovanni Agnelli sen. The Agnelli family has controlled Fiat for more than a century.

Spitting matches

Angry motorists in London are attacking the city's parking wardens so often that the wardens are being given DNA swab kits to identify anyone who spits at them, says the Evening Standard. The DNA samples are checked against a police database to identify any matches for common assault. Parking tickets in London generated more than $2.8 billion in revenue last year.

We are the world

A bill has been passed, in the US state of Ohio, prohibiting the use of red-light cameras and speed cameras except when a policeman is present to witness the offence and issue a ticket to the driver. Website thenewspaper.com quotes the bill's proponent Jim Raussen as saying that camera enforcement "at best has questionable results". He cited cases where people got tickets for offences they did not commit as well as studies showing that red-light cameras increased the number of crashes.