Children on the loose; Heed slipping advice; Tesla cashback; VW parking a lot

I DON’T know about you but there is something terrifying about a child being allowed to stray around in a moving car.

Without being sensationalist, I have come across three instances of it over the past couple of weeks – at the height of the heatwave.

I won’t insult your intelligence by even briefly outlining the horrible consequences of sudden braking, swerving or impact.

But I am dumbfounded by the parental/adult mindset that allows such potential danger in a car.

In one case the driver, a young woman, was preoccupied with consuming an ice-cream while waiting for the lights to go green.

The back seat, meanwhile, was mayhem, with a young child strapped in and screaming while an older one bounced around with abandon.

I’ll leave it at that.

But I am feeling a bit guilty for not saying something. What would you do in a situation like that? Would you say something to the driver?

The others were on the move when I saw them so I could do little about it.

 Expect to hear a lot of advice on driving over the coming while as rain returns and road surfaces get slippery.

A dash of rain – by all accounts there is some coming – can turn a stretch of dry road into dangerous territory.

So drive more slowly and leave loads of room to the car ahead – just in case.

 You’d wonder what is really going on at Tesla these days. Everywhere I look in US publications it’s ‘Tesla this’ and ‘Tesla that’.

Boss man Elon Musk has captured more headlines than everyone except the self-drive Trump machine.

But I wonder, of late, if America isn’t now foisting something of a ‘failure wish’ on the electric car maker. It seems to fling itself gleefully into any bit of bad news it stumbles across about the EV maker.

Among the weirdest is the Wall Street Journal report that Tesla has asked some suppliers to return a portion of its payments to them.

That’s so they can make an attempt to turn a profit for a change. It has requested a “meaningful” amount back of the payments made since 2016.

Observers say the company’s “eroding cash position” has alarmed investors. Makes you wonder.  Reports claim Volkswagen is renting parking spaces to stockpile vehicles which cannot be sold because of logjams sparked by the new engine emissions tests (WLTP).

Things are at a strange juncture because carmakers have to get models through the new test as it comes into effect from September 1 in the EU.

A company spokeswoman is quoted as saying that the automotive giant has rented some multi-storey car parks and opened other parking lots for the vehicles it cannot yet deliver.