Top Gear Gets YouTubed

After years of random people uploading their own clips from the hit UK TV show the BBC has started its own Top Gear channel on YouTube. There are 30 clips available including scenes we've seen on air plus juicy bits never aired outside of the UK.

To get it all started, and to quote CarAdvice.com.au, "Michael Harvey, Editorial Director of Top Gear, gives us a quick overview of what to expect in the future." You can see the clip below.

So there you go, welcome to 2005!

Western Aussies Most Deadly Drivers

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau released its annual road safety report yesterday and for the third year in a row Western Australia has scored the worst (or best depending on how you look at it) road toll with 10.4 deaths per 100,000 residents.

The next worst region was Tasmania, with 8.3 deaths per 100,000. Queensland had 7.9 deaths per 100,000, South Australia 6.8, Victoria 6.3, New South Wales 5.7 and the ACT had just 4.4 deaths per 100,000 people.

Zero deaths would be preferable but the only way to do that would be to stop people driving.

Mitsubishi iMiEV Available Next Year

Some good news on the electric vehicle front today from Mitsubishi. Apparently, due to crazy oil prices, lots of successful testing and positive public response, Mitsubishi is pushing the release of its funky jelly bean iMiev forward a year.

Originally the plan was to lease them out to commercial and government fleets during 2009 with a retail launch to the Japanese public in 2010. Now they're saying that Japanese car buyers will be able to grab their own jelly bean by this time next year.

No mention of a US or Australian release. :(

World Bank Says BioFuels Responsible For 75% Hike In Food Prices

Over at Autoblog Green (which has a nice new design and favicon) they're saying that The Guardian ran a news item stating that The World Bank has come out and said that Biofuels are responsible for a 75% increase in food prices.

The previously mentioned group Food Before Fuel estimated a measly 30% increase and the US government reckons it was only 3%... but they also said they landed on the moon and nothing crashed at Roswell.

I think the worst part of the story is that the report was released in April but was withheld so as not to embarrass George W. Way to go!

Car Photography For Dummies

In my current role I've found myself having to take hundreds of photographs of various cars. I like to think I take a semi-decent photo but when someone writes up a simple list of things to check and do to get great results you'd be mad not to look into it.

Richard Truesdell at Automotive Traveler has done just that with this very helpful article on how to take great car photos. He uses a recent shoot he did of a 1968 Ford Mustang California Special to talk the reader through the process.

Simple things like the time of day and location you take the photos can make a boring photo into a thing of beauty.

Do yourself a favour and go read the article.

FuelFrog Tells It Like It Is

FuelFrog is a simple website that allows you to enter data from each fill-up at the petrol (gas) station then displays your aggregated data. By providing the distance you've driven since the last fill-up, the current price and how much fuel you put in it can give you all sorts of interesting data like your average fuel consumption (I'm currently running at 8.8 litres per 100km or 0.27 MPG for you old school non-metricists).

One feature I've asked them to add is the ability to display how much it costs you to travel a certain distance. e.g. Using the data they've captured I figured it costs me $12.35 AUD to travel 100km (that's $11.68 USD per 62 miles or $18.84 USD per 100 miles)... and the bad news is it's only going to get worse. :(