The good oil: Auckland - the city of traffic lights

A colleague jokes that Auckland should be called the "city of lights" - traffic lights. Certainly there are many streets seemingly chock-a-bloc with traffic lights, some purely for pedestrians. The new lights at Upper Queen St and Newton Rd were needed - the T-junction has been a hazard for years. But one reason why planning authorities overseas are cutting back on traffic lights in favour of roundabouts, especially in new suburban developments, is fuel savings. Traffic lights might help to control traffic but their presence wastes a colossal amount of fuel and adds to exhaust pollution. Watch Toyota and Honda highlight this when they launch the new petrol-electric Prius and Insight models here. European carmakers will do the same when their stop/start models start to arrive in numbers.

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Road safety groups in the US say the spike in fuel prices last year meant people ended up driving less - the main reason why road deaths last year were at their lowest level in nearly 50 years, or down 9 per cent on 2007. The number of vehicle miles travelled in 2008 dropped by about 3.6 per cent nationally, after climbing for several decades. The steepest drop was in New England, where one of its states, Massachusetts (population 6.5 million), had 346 traffic deaths in 2008, down from 434 in 2007. But state officials found themselves trying to explain a less positive statistic: Massachusetts had the lowest rate of seatbelt use in the US last year, 66.8 per cent, compared with a national average of 83 per cent. Seatbelt use in not compulsory in many US states, and motorists can be cited for not wearing a seat belt only if they are pulled over for another offence.

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Women in Wales reckon a fellow in a fancy motor is a better potential partner than a bloke in an old banger. A university in Cardiff showed hundreds of women pictures of the same man sitting behind the wheel of a Bentley Continental and a battered Ford Fiesta. The women liked the man in the Bentley best, saying he was better placed to rear children. The research team concluded that women judge a man by his wealth and status. Men tested in the same way didn't care what car women drove - they judged her on her looks.

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Chinese carmaker Geely Automobile Holdings has bought financially troubled Australian gearbox-maker Drivetrain Systems International (DSI) for A$47.4 million ($59.8 million), saving the jobs of 168 workers. Geely is expected to raise production volumes at the Albury, NSW, plant as part of its aggressive new model programme. Ford Australia welcomed the news - it buys four-speed automatic transmissions from DSI for models such as its LPG Falcon and rear-drive Territory. The Ford contract runs to June, 2010. The plant was established by US company Borg-Warner about 40 years ago but struck problems last year when South Korean carmaker SsangYong went bankrupt. SsangYong represented about 60 per cent of DSI's business.

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The Australian car industry continues to push the Federal Government to introduce a car scrappage scheme, despite industry minister Kim Carr saying that it was not necessary to boost car sales. New-car data from Europe indicates that scrappage incentives have made a huge difference, with sales in Germany increasing by up to 40 per cent. But Carr's department estimates a scrappage scheme would cost the Federal Government around A$1 billion.
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There is apparently no law in the United States against sending properly packaged body fluids in the mail, which is why a Washington DC court can't prosecute Michael Harold Lynch. Lynch was fined US$300 for speeding but failed to pay the fine in time and received a penalty of US$95. He got together US$395 in small change, put it in a plastic bag, urinated in the bag, sealed it, and popped it in the post. The court wasn't impressed and sent it back - with a bill for the postage.

alastair.sloane@nzherald.co.nz