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Welcome to the latest edition of AA News, the online newsletter from AA Ireland. I hope you are approaching Christmas in good form after what has been an exceptionally turbulent time in the last few months. We are hearing an awful lot of bad news lately, but one ray of light from an entirely forgettable 2008 has been the ongoing reduction in road deaths. I hope the articles are of interest to you. If you have any views or any suggestions as to topics that we should cover please email me directly by clicking here publicaffairs@aaireland.ie

Conor Faughnan, AA Public Affairs Manager

Here come the Garda..
Christmas comes but once a year, but the shoppers come out in their droves for weeks in advance. Each December, Operation Freeflow is implemented in Dublin, to keep the city moving and this year it will launch on Sunday 30th November, with the full effect being felt on Monday 1st December and extra Gardai in evidence on the streets. Nicola Hudson, AA Roadwatch Controller tells us more:

December is a busy month at the best of times but Freeflow does help to make it easier. There is no doubt at all that at some stage between now and Christmas we will have an incident, or a day of bad weather, when traffic snarls to a halt. When that happens, motorists will start thinking that Freeflow is a swear word. But in fairness, December’s traffic madness would be a lot worse without it

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The AA has come out against the proposed new tax on people who have a parking space at their place of work. The measure was included in the recent Finance Act. While the tax is supposed to be environmentally motivated it will in fact be a complex and unfair mechanism for hitting car users who do not have a choice to use public transport.

Conor wrote an article in the Irish Times recently which gave the reasons why the AA felt the new tax was not a constructive measure. Here is a synopsis of the points he made.

Winter in Ireland... Long dark days, wet blustery nights, strange warm spells, icy mornings and fog. In a year when we hardly had a Summer at all, winter is here with a return to long nights, traffic jams and gloomy skies. With all the evidence of climate change around the globe one thing we seem to be stuck with is unreliable weather. Irish winters can be long and dark affairs, with mixed and fluky conditions. The AA is warning motorists to be prepared for a long dark winter on the roads.

Winter is dangerous on the roads. Poor weather and poor visibility can be killers. It is not just the icy mornings that are treacherous. There will be wet and windy days, misty mornings and long dark evenings. The message is to slow down and take extra care.

Reading newspaper headlines in recent months you could be forgiven for thinking that you have fallen into a time warp back to the 1980s. That feeling could be reinforced next year as an old and for a long time intractable problem - rising insurance prices - is set to return.

The electric car has been around a long time. Most of us in cities will remember electric milk floats and bread vans, but getting cars to a mass market is something else entirely. The traditional achilles' heel was range, but milk-float performance was also never likely to be a selling point.

Many Irish motorists will have noticed the appearance of a new brand in the fuel market, Topaz. This Irish company are in the midst of a major re-branding of all Shell and Statoil filling stations across the island of Ireland.

With 350 stations in place, they're already a big player in the Irish market with such innovations as Topaz Clean Fuels, which Topaz say can give you more miles per gallon and up to 3% of an improvement in fuel efficiency, thanks to additives that help clean up and maintain fuel injection systems.

Anything that helps reduce emissions and improve engine efficency must be welcomed in the current environment and the AA approves Topaz Clean Fuels, especially since Topaz are not charging a premium for this fuel. We'd like to see other oil companies follow suit in the coming year.

At long last prices are falling at the pumps, ending a chaotic year with prices that come as a blessed release after the peaks of Summer. The current average price is 103 cent for petrol and slightly more for diesel. Indeed if it wasn't for the 8 cent per litre increase in excise duty we would already be down below €1 (which is available in some garages). The last time we saw prices this low was in April 2005. Don’t be fooled though. There are still dark & sooty clouds on the horizon for those – ie all of us – affected by the price of fuel.

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As I write this note the number of people killed on Irish roads so far this year stands at 260. It may be an obscenity to refer to a figure like that as being 'good', but the reality is that it is 15% lower than last year. 2007 in turn saw an 8% reduction on 2006 figures. It is beginning to seem as if real, sustained progress is being made in the fight against road death.

The 2008 AA Hospitality Awards ceremony took place earlier this month in the Guinness Storehouse, St James's Gate, Dublin. Presented by AA Public Affairs Manager, Conor Faughnan and AA Roadwatch Controller, Nicola Hudson the Awards celebrated the achievements of our award winners and recognised the excellence and success in their chosen market.

It really is tacky behaviour, but there is no doubt that there are plenty of people willing to jump into a disabled space if they are desperate for parking.

December 3rd was National Disability Awareness Day, and the AA was contacted by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown Co.Co. as they tried to do something positive to mark the day and try to provoke people's general awareness of their basic attitude towards people with disabilities

AA Poll of 5,000 shows 27% of all Motorists are planning a shopping trip to the North
The AA has conducted a major survey of Motorist’s views. 5,000 motorists participated, and among the immediate findings is that 27.2% of people said that they would be visiting Northern Ireland for a shopping trip between now and Christmas.