The NSW Government has budgeted $329 million in revenue from fines this year, with 90 per cent to be sourced from motorists. The estimate is $33 million up on last year.

How much harder can they milk the golden goose called the motorist? Next year the NSW Government plans to up the ante to $351 million. Incredibly, there are more than 600 fine-generating offences on the books. The NSW Law and Justice Foundation Report called Fine, But Not Fair, says fines unfairly impact on the disadvantaged.

Road death in Britain fell to an historical low last year. Like ours, the 2008 British road toll was the lowest since record-keeping began more than 75 years ago.

Worryingly, though, the Australian road toll is back on the rise. The national road toll for the first five months of 2008 was 572. This year, it's up to 664 - roughly where we were back in 2007. The figures suggest a close correlation between petrol price and road trauma. The more petrol costs, the less we drive. And the less we drive, the less we die. Go figure.

Eighty-four-year-old former Chrysler boss Lee Iacocca
told reporters last week the company should repay its government loans as quickly as possible.

Iacocca cited the government's capacity for ‘extreme oversight' as the main reason for getting out from under as soon as possible. And he should know - in the early 1990s he used $1 billion in government loans to rescue Chrysler from bankcuptcy. He paid that 10-year loan back in three.

The guy's a legend - he got fired by Henry Ford in 1978, steered Chrysler through the Arab Oil Embargo, survived bankruptcy, launched the whole ‘if you can find a better car, buy it' campaign, and now he's promoting the Mustang. At 84...

Kuwait's oil minister says there will be no oil supply reduction at OPEC's meeting in September, predicting oil could be as high as $US80 a barrel by Christmas.

Frankly, OPEC was as surprised as everyone else when oil topped the $70 a barrel - US - mark early this month. OPEC cut oil production by 4.5 million barrels a day last year in a failed attempt to maintain the price above $US50 a barrel.

Uncertainty over political unrest in Iran has not yet affected oil prices. But analysts say disputes over the recent presidential election in Iran have the capacity to de-stabilise the world oil market.

So, what a pity the Persian Gulf doesn't contain two-thirds of the world's known reserves Big Macs ... instead of oil. Iran, which most people in the west probably wouldn't be able to find on a map, produces 3.8 million barrels of oil a day. More worryingly, it could block the Straits of Hormuz - the narrow waterway through which all the oil passes. If that happens, we'll all get a front-row seat on the Oil Crisis express. Again.

Max Moseley's proposed $80 million Formula One spending cap has been defeated. Ferrari, McLaren, Brawn and other big-spending Formula One teams will be able to continue what Mr Moseley called the F1 "financial arms race" next year.

Big Max is out of the game, too, from October. He won't stand for re-election. The big-spending teams, led by Ferrari, threatened to split from the competition and run their own, but in a two-hour meeting behind closed doors last week Moseley's arch-enemy and Ferrari boss Luca di Montezemolo proved his really was the bigger one, leaving Moseley to fall on his sword.

Emergency services contained a 6000-litre ethanol spill at a Sydney oil refinery last Friday. The Department of Environment and Climate Change told the ABC the environmental impact would be minimal because, unlike petrol, ethanol dissolves in water.

The ethanol was set to be blended with petrol to become E10. Much of the spill was contained under a foam blanket to prevent ignition, and fuel remaining in the leaking tanker was decanted. There were, however, a bunch of unusually happy fish swimming in the Parramatta River on Friday night.

An Australian company has designed a flying saucer for personal recreational transport.

The Hoverpod from vertical lift innovator Entecho is the car George Jetson would drive if he'd ever managed the conceptual leap to reality. It can cruise at 1.5 metres on a cushion of air and reach 120km/h. It's still under development, but sounds like fun if it goes ahead.

The Mercedes-Benz E-Class runout sale has been so effective the company has run out of current models three weeks ahead of the launch of the new E-Class later this month.

Renault has reviewed its business operations in light of the economic downturn, and won't field a communications manager any longer. Managing director Rudi Koenig will liaise with the press henceforth. I'm sure he's looking forward to that.

BMW has announced booming sales of its diesel models. One-third of all BMWs sold so far in Australia this year have been diesels.

Skoda has launched the new Superb, the most luxurious Skoda ever. The car kicks off at about $43k, plus on-road costs, with a bunch of hi-tech petrol and diesel Volkswagen Group engines.

Hyundai has ranked first among the volume brands in the latest J D Power & Associates Quality Survey.

The Audi A4 and Q5 have been awarded five stars in the new EuroNCAP vehicle safety ratings.

BMW has begun trials of its speed limit display system in Australia. The system reads roadside speed limit signs and uses an onboard database to display the prevailing limit in the instrument cluster.

US-based Carbon Motors will debut the world's most hi-tech dedicated police cruiser in 2012. Unlike other cop cars, which are adapted from existing passenger car platforms, the Carbon Motors E7 will not be available as a regular passenger car.

This thing is straight out of Robocop. It has 360-degree built-in flashing lights (so no more roof bars), hose-out seating for offenders, the ‘felon' area is accessed by ‘suicide' doors (appropriately enough). It has heated and vented seats designed for people wearing body armour and a utility belt, a head-up display, forward-looking infrared and video surveillance of the offender compartment. It's claimed Carbon Motors has 10,000 orders in the pipeline, but is yet to decide where to build the E7.