With summer well and truly over and the clocks now reverting to GMT, the nights will be well and truly drawing in. During the period of shorter daylight hours (October to March) we statistically see more incidents involving pedestrians and vulnerable road users than during other months.

There’s something extremely bland about turning 37. With the much-celebrated big 4-0 still well beyond the horizon, 37 is a beige age, possessing only the dubious honour of being ‘the beginning of your late 30's.’

It’s that time of year. Too late for holiday advice, too early to panic about blizzards or shortage of road salt, so every motoring organisation and journal will be dusting off the “Prepare your car for winter” press release.

Government announcements – don’t you just love them? Well, yes and no. Yes, in that they bring IAM RoadSmart loads of media coverage, and no, because the latest came out at 10.30 on a Saturday evening – not easy to plan for! The latest was an important announcement about the long touted idea of allowing learners on motorways. We had already supported the concept in a consultation reply many months ago and it was good to see the government adopting all the recommendations we liked.

Holidays are over, Christmas is not yet on the horizon and forecourts are full of pre-owned cars which have been traded in to get the latest “67” plate. For lots of us, now is the time we think about trading up to a newer model.