There is consideration over a proposal that the UK should adopt the European road signs although some of our road signs are a bit strange, that’s not the reason for the change. The reason for the change is that new cars will feature a camera that scans the road ahead for signs, it takes into account the shape, colours and fonts in order to display the road sign on your dashboard. Some of today’s cars already have this technology however if we adopted the standard road signs a lot more vehicles would be able to have it as it would be much easier to develop a system which is reliable. (more…)
Standard Road Signs Destined For UK?
DVLA Check When Closed
Many of our customers need a DVLA check when they don’t have their counterpart licence, this is to check that they do not have any convictions on their licence or more than 9 points. This is standard and every car rental company needs to be 100% you don’t have any convictions or too many points as it will void their insurance, usually we would just get a DVLA check done and that would be the end of it with the person hiring the car having to pay for the admin fee which is around £10, what happens however if it’s outside the hours in which the DVLA operate? (more…)
Printed Maps Vs Sat Navs
In recent years satellite navigate has seen a boom in sales but what about its almost forgotten predecessor the Road Atlas also referred to as a printed map? In-car satellite navigate is pushing ahead in terms of use for young drivers but what about the older generation are they still relying on their trusty road map? Apparently so as a poll of 24,000 drivers found that nearly two thirds of motorists had used a printed map within the last six months, 63%. (more…)
UK Dreams Of Low Emission Leadership
Nick Clegg has expressed his desire for the country to become the leading country for low emissions, he has called for help from motor industry experts to recommend ideas to help the UK with this mission. The government has committed to spending five hundred million pounds between the years 2015 and 2020 to elevate the ultra-low emission vehicle appeal and further develop the industry in order to tackle the overall larger issue. (more…)
How to Help Your Child Prepare For Their Driving Test
Though there are many stressful aspects of parenting teenagers, one of the most stressful issues is preparing your teenager for his or her first driving test. Studying for the written test can be incredibly stressful for a teen, especially since the material is incredibly dry, and the pressures of studying for school exams often complicate the situation. The driving test is also a big stressor for teens and their parents, and it requires an intensive amount of preparation over time. Though frustration and negativity are virtually unavoidable parts of the process of learning to drive, maintaining a positive attitude with your child and offering sound advice and support can make all the difference to their successful examination. (more…)
“Plays The Road” Smartphone App
Volkswagen have brought their car manufacture expertise into the world of smartphones and produced a brand new app called “Play The Road” which was actually intended just as an experiment and never meant to be release due to health and safety issues, so what is it? It’s an app that needed the help of electronic musicians Underworld, and the idea of it is that it picks a music playlist depending upon the style of your driving. (more…)
Van Hire With No Credit Card
Van hire isn’t as common as car hire in the UK however, we can arrange this in a number of locations and we do all sorts of deals such as no deposit and young driver van hire, however one of the questions we regularly get is can you do van hire with no credit card? As you may be aware car hire without a credit card is one of our most popular offers so we felt it would be ideal if we could do the same for our customers that want to get their hands on a van.
Majority of any kind of rental companies only take credit cards as a payment method, this is due to how easy it is to take payment whenever they need. This can prove problematic for some as many people don’t have credit card or just don’t like using one, myself included and its fully justifiable as it’s so easy to get into debt through regularly using the credit card. Therefor we need to look at an alternative payment method that was suitable.
We had an idea, everyone has a debit card! So we got to work and called all the van hire suppliers main offices in order to organise deals, eventually we managed to negotiate one. This came with certain conditions however in regards to the card. To find out if your card will be accepted at the location you wish to hire at, please contact us.
We can offer this service at several locations all across the UK, if you are interested in getting this then please call us directly on +44 (0)113 880 0748 or email us on sales@thealternativeagency.co.uk, please DO NOT book online as we can’t ensure that you get the right supplier.
Robert Gillespie
Having worked in the car rental industry for over 15 years, he really knows his stuff. Rob heads up our marketing department and as a keen traveller, always has a new location to talk about. Particularly if there is a golf course nearby.
Baby Seats For £1 Per Day
We’ve often written blogs about optional extras and whether you should get them from the rental companies or buy them yourselves and we’ve also done the same regarding baby seats. We advised people to go and buy baby seats on their holiday instead depending on the time they were hiring as baby seats as rental companies charged anywhere between £5-15 per day for the seat which quickly added up to the cost of buying one. (more…)
Traffic Congestion Adds Up
Statistics from TomTom have revealed that you may be losing a lot of time stuck in slow moving traffic through their traffic index. It’s also revealed some interesting statistics in regards to the most congested cities within the UK, Belfast is by far in the way ahead of everywhere followed by Bristol, Brighton & Hove, Edinburgh and London, other names in the list include Leeds Bradford, Manchester, Leicester, Liverpool and Sheffield. A large amount of cities are showing increases in congestion on its last year’s statistics with only Edinburgh, Leeds-Bradford and Nottingham being less congested and everywhere else failing to improve. (more…)
DVLA Scrapping Counterpart Licences
Is it good news or bad? The DVLA have made their intentions known in regards to removing the paper part of your licence and plan to do so by 2015, straight away our thoughts as a rental company are that this could cause a major problem in regards to our industry. Often when people hire a car we have to do a licence check in order to make sure they have no convictions or too many points on their licence as we don’t want people voiding the insurance, this is an important safety measure that every car hire company worldwide has to take when someone doesn’t have their counterpart. (more…)