Autofestival 2013: vote for a chance to win a city car

As in every year, a sweepstake is organised by the Luxembourgish press group Saint-Paul Luxembourg s.a. (which publishes the newspaper La Voix / Luxemburger Wort).

During the Auto Festival which is under way now in Luxembourg, you have the chance to win a city car if you take part in the competition from www.autovumjoer.lu

Basically all you have to do is to vote for your favourite car in 6 categories and you are automatically entered into the free prize draw.

Competition open until February 5, 2013.

Good luck !

Eurosport competition: take a chance at winning a 30 000 euro car

The annual "The most beautiful car" competition is ongoing on the Eurosport page.

All you have to do is to vote for your preferred car and you will be entered in a draw where the first prize is a 30 000 euro car.

Voting takes places until January 20, 2013.

Visit the Eurosport page to see the cars and vote: http://mostbeautifulcar.eurosport.co.uk/?/page/view/2012/

Good luck!

Speed ticket in Luxembourg

Luxembourg police has intensified its controls in the city during this period.

One colleague just got a ticket of EUR 145 for speeding (he was driving with over 70 km/h in a street with a 50km/h limit). There's also a penalty of 2 points attached to the driving license.

Apparently, 3 items that policemen also verify carefully are:
- wearing the seat belt
- talking to the mobile phone without a hands-free device
- using the turn signal

Drive safely!

New car registrations in Luxembourg fell by 10% in 2009

The National Office of Statistics STATEC, has announced that new car registrations in Luxembourg have fallen by 10% in 2009, from approximately 52,000 cars registered in 2008.

Thus, the crisis has claimed its toll also on the car dealers in Luxembourg in 2009.

The good news is that people living in the Grand Region of Luxembourg seem very interested in the current AutoFestival. Since we published the article on this subject, around 20 people read it daily coming from search engines.

Accordingly, there are signs that the crisis is over and now, with more security regarding their job, people feel that they can afford a new car.

Travelling in Europe: by train or by car?

We were just talking with some friends the other day about the high prices of train tickets in Europe.

The conclusion was that, as a general rule, in Europe is much expensive to travel by train than by car.

And the situation is more absurd if you think that train was supposed to be the main (or the only) means of transportation for the poor.

Here below there are some comparisons between the prices of train tickets and the cost of going by car.

To keep things comparable, we looked for a round trip during this week-end for 2 adults for distances of approximately 160 km:

Germany:

Trier - Bonn. Train costs EUR 108, while car costs only EUR 26

France:


Metz - Strasbourg. Train costs EUR 92, while car costs only EUR 54 (out of which you can save EUR 24 if you decide to avoid the highway and take the national road. That would increase your journey time by an hour)

 

Italy:


Milano - Verona. Train costs EUR 32, while car costs EUR 42 (out of which you can save EUR 17 if you decide to avoid the highway and take the national. That would increase your journey time by an hour)

Italy is apparently one of the few countries in Europe where it is actually worth taking the train.

Spain:


Valencia - Albacete. Train costs EUR 89, while car costs EUR 30

Belgium:


Arlon - Charleroi. Train costs EUR 78, while car costs EUR 27

Netherlands:


Maastricht - Utrecht. Train costs EUR 47, while car costs EUR 28

Of course, one could argue that we did not include in our comparison a proportional part of the costs of owning a car (purchase cost, insurance, maintenance, etc.). And that would be true.

At the same time, one would have to consider that we did not also include the additional costs of transportation from the railway station to the final destination (hotel, family, etc.). This would also increase the total cost of transportation (bus, light train, subway. Taxis excluded, as they would kill the budget).

And this is only one of the reasons we never take the train. Others would be:
- the car is much more comfortable than the train
- you can stop when you want, where you want
- you can leave home when you want and come back when you want