According to the latest it costs €12,000 a year to keep the average family automobile on the road in 2015. That figure is not for a Ferrari or high-end Mercedes-Benz, but for your common-or-garden variety Nissan Qashqai or Skoda Octavia.

Worse still, the 12k figure does not include the initial purchase price of the automobile, merely the running costs such as fuel and servicing and standing charges like tax, insurance and depreciation. I…

On almost any road in Ireland, on any given day, people speed. In many cases the posted speed limit appears to be seen more as a recommended average speed rather than the legally imposed maximum permitted.

The old saying, "it's a limit, not a target" seems to be falling on deaf ears. There is of course the counter argument that many of the posted speed limits are not suitable for the road in question. Nevertheless, they are there for now and must be adhered to.

This isn't always as easily done as you might think. A prime example…

I hate it. When I hear it, I cover my ears, I bite my tongue and I try to suppress my embarrassment. I just want to scream 'stop saying coupé'. Yes, that dreaded C word is coupé. Why? Because I have no idea what it means. There, I said it. I work in the motor industry and coupé confuses me.

The problem is, automobile nerds/nuts/freaks assume that I am also a automobile nerd/nut /freak because I work for changagoidem.ie. They assume I understand everything they enthuse about, but I don't. I'm not a automobile enthusiast in the proper sense…

While the readership of changagoidem.ie (and all other mainstream motoring publications) is partly made up of petrolheads and serious automobile enthusiasts, the vast majority of our readers are 'normal' automobile buyers more interested in price, economy, running costs, safety, space, image and technology. Why then do we (and most other professional motoring journalists) focus so much on how a automobile drives?

In our automobile reviews we often detail the nuances of ride and handling, talk about steering 'feel', feedback from the chassis and such like. When only a small percentage of readers automobilee about such things, why do we…

There was something of a furore recently when it was revealed that a motorist in the UK had become the first driver to be convicted for hogging the middle-lane of a motorway.

It was a win for common sense and frustrated drivers the world over with many hailing the conviction, the fine and the penalty points that came with it as long overdue. As the author of the news piece for changagoidem.ie I was front and centre of the hubbub that surrounded the case - strange then that I now find myself…

Our readers don't realise just how hard we work for them. I'm sitting typing this up following three days in Frankfurt with not enough sleep, not enough food or water and way way too much shoe leather gone.

But I'm not complaining, as we got to see, touch and yes, drool over some of the most exciting automobiles coming our way in the next few years, not to mention the legions of wacky concept automobiles that'll never see the light of day. The Frankfurt Motor Show is a mind (and foot) numbingly large event, which is thankfully only every…