The good oil: Porsche reducing carbon footprint

The best indication of the growth of small cars in the New Zealand market comes with Suzuki's move to expand its dealer network to 27 outlets. One of its new Auckland operators is long-time Holden dealer Moyes of Panmure. The Suzuki showroom will occupy the place at Moyes where Holden Special Vehicles has been for years. High-performance HSV will move to another part of the yard. Suzuki was the fifth best-selling brand in New Zealand last month, behind Toyota, Holden, Ford and Mazda. The Suzuki Swift was the second most popular car, trailing 22 units behind the Toyota Corolla.

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A professional couple - he's a GP, she's a dietitian - have a beef with council about bus lanes. She got a bluey in the mail for $150 for travelling 74m in a car in a bus lane. "I went into the lane looking for the driveway," she said. It was pretty much the same reason the Good Oil gave the judge a couple of weeks ago. "What am I supposed to learn from this?" she said. We told her to phone council and ask to view the video of the alleged offence. Then fight it in court. And not to take any nonsense from the haughty woman in council who scolded us on the phone for not first "scouting" the area to find the driveway.

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Australia's national roading body the NRMA reckons crash safety requirements and the search for better fuel economy has led to new danger in car design - poor visibility. NRMA research head Robert McDonald says thicker front pillars that slope back closer to the driver were making it difficult for drivers to see some other road users, even at close quarters. A uniform test of 138 new vehicles showed that 80 per cent scored only one or two stars out of a possible five, says McDonald. The highest score was four stars, but only two vehicles managed to achieve it - the Volkswagen Golf and Citroen C4. Australia's biggest-selling vehicle, the Holden Commodore, scored only one star. The Ford Falcon scored two, same as a number of luxury cars. McDonald says that in some one-star cars, a pedestrian or a cyclist could be lost in a blind spot when as close as 9m from the car.

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Porsche believes that its upcoming Cayenne and Panamera hybrid models will play only a minor role in reducing the company's carbon footprint, because petrol-electric units are expected to comprise just 15 per cent of total sales. Product chief Durheimer suggests the hybrid drive system will be of greater value to Porsche in philosophical and political terms than in reducing overall CO2 emissions. "With the hybrid we give them a piece of technology that gives them a level of performance together with social responsibility. With this they don't have to argue with those that ask why they bought such a large car," he said.

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A 44-year-old drunk driver got out of his car at a gridlocked intersection in Ann Arbor, Michigan, stumbled across the road, threw open his arms towards the policeman who was directing traffic - and asked the cop for a big hug. The cop declined and the drunk ended up with his arms behind his back and his hands in cuffs.

Britain's Daily Mail reports that BBC producers filming an adventure documentary pulled out a "telephone-book-size" set of safety precautions and ordered contributing editor Sir Robin Knox-Johnston not to light a portable stove unless a "safety adviser" supervised. Knox-Johnston was the first person to sail single-handedly and nonstop around the world.

alastair.sloane@nzherald.co.nz