Wednesday, February 25, 2015


freepressseries.co.uk


HR-V spearheads Honda’s bid for crossover market


THE Honda HR-V is back, 16 years after it more or less invented the ‘crosso- ver’ body style and almost a decade after it was taken out of production. Honda knows it has to


get back into the compact crossover market, and this is its weapon. It is said to be fun to drive, efficient


and high-tech – but then that is the manufacturer talking. Buyers can expect a


seven-inch touch-screen on mid- and high-grade models, petrol and die- sel engines, ‘hidden’ rear door handles to enhance a coupe-style look, and the same cleverly-folding ‘Mag-


ic Seats’ already seen in the Civic. The 453-litre boot dwarfs those of some of the HR-V’s rivals, while it will use an An- droid operating system for its media interface. Functionali- ty will mirror that of a typical Sony, Samsung or HTC smart- phone so buyers will already knowhowto use it.


Engineered to give a ‘sa- loon-like’ driving experi- ence, efficient 1.5-litre petrol and 1.6-litre diesel engines will be offered, with 128bhp and 118bhp respectively. Manual gearboxes will be standard. Honda will reveal the car in


the flesh at the Geneva Mo- tor Show in March.


35


SELL YOUR


Private car park overstay ines may be illegal, believes RAC


DRIVERSmay have been illegally charged many millions of pounds for overstays while parking on private land, according to the RAC Foundation. Some drivers have been threat-


ened with, and have paid, £100 for exceeding time limits, but the courts could see such payments as penalties and thus unenforce- able, the foundation said. RACFoundation director Professor


Stephen Glaister said: “Millions of drivers could be in line for a refund. We estimate that in 2013 alone driv- ers might have been overcharged by some£100 million.”


The foundation said that al- though the Protection of Free- doms Act 2012 banned clamping on private land, drivers who stay longer than the time they have paid for were still likely to receive tickets that demand payments of up to £100, and in some cases sig- nificantly more. However, in a paper for the foun- dation, barrister John de Waal QC argued that this is likely to be several times more than com- pensation for a genuine loss – so it would not be enforceable by the courts. Mr de Waal said: “Payments


at the level that operators presently demand as sanctions are unlikely to count as genu- ine pre-estimate of loss; they should be seen by the courts as penalties, which means they are unenforceable.” Mr de Waal also said that Euro-


pean consumer legislation which requires contracts to be fair means so-called “early payment discounts”, which are often used to put pressure on the public to pay up quickly or face a higher charge, are in fact unlawful be- cause they constitute a “price es- calation clause”.


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