Use it or Lose It?
It seems that every few days we read of new regulations or conditions that classic cars find more difficult to adhere to.
As an example, owners of classic cars who want to take their cherished vehicles to tour Australia are now faced with potentially enormous costs for testing and/or repair to ensure that the country’s new tighter regulations on asbestos content are not breached.
In Europe, there are increasing numbers of congestion zones, clean air zones, etc. that, whilst not necessarily unique to classic cars, are examples of increasing regulatory focus on motor vehicles and their users.
All are laudable in looking after public safety. However, they often apply to classic cars in different ways to the media portrayal and usually require some seeking out and interpreting. Thankfully, people like the Federation of British Historical Vehicle Clubs (FBHVC) do that sort of work on our behalf and let car clubs know so that they can alert we drivers… who are usually too busy fixing something under our car to read all of the legislation!
Using our cars as often as possible is the best way of ensuring our needs are not forgotten and, better still, are catered for rather than legislated against.
Petrolheads Welcome is an apolitical organisation. However, we do share the passion of Car Clubs to help owners get the most from their vehicles. It doesn’t matter if you’re planning a day out locally or a trans-European tour, our aim is to make that planning as easy as possible.
Finding places to stay overnight where you can rest assured that your car is welcome isn’t always easy. Thankfully, our website is packed (and growing) with places that like-minded enthusiasts have visited before and are happy to recommend to the rest of us. After all, that’s how the classic car scene works, right? We look out for each other on the road and we happily share recommendations about good places and warnings of poor, unwelcoming places to avoid.
As you probably know already, our website is free to use and is eager to publicise your recommendations of places to meet, eat, visit and stay, anywhere in the world… where your car is welcomed as much as you are.
April’s annual Drive-It Day in the UK is a great initiative to remind Joe Public just how entertaining classic cars are when they’re seen on the road. And we should remember that the legislators live amongst Joe Public!
The bottom line for us all is that if we don’t use it we might lose it!
