#windscreen care

Everyone likes to think that they can save themselves some money, so when I read that the best way to clean your car windscreen was to use newspaper, I was keen to give it a go. According to the article I read, the ink used to print the newspapers is slightly abrasive and contains solvents, so if you rub the windscreen with damp newspaper, it will dry to a streak-free shine and all traces of road film and insect corpses will be gone. My paper recycling bag is full of newspaper every week, especially in the summer months when I don’t use any paper to light a fire, and it seemed a win-win prospect. I would not only be helping the environment by re-using some of the paper, but would also avoid using up paper towels or having to wash window cloths. Sadly, it seems the information I had received was totally and hopelessly wrong and out of date. Not only didn’t the newspaper clean the screen at all well, it actually left a smudgy mess, and my hands were black with the ink. Further

Here is a little question to get you thinking of long hot summer days – if you’ve been driving for more years than you care to remember, cast your mind back. Do you remember driving through agricultural areas and finding your windscreen thickly coated with defunct insects? I certainly do – it seemed as though you had to wash the bugs off several times a week so that the windscreen wipers didn’t spread the poor creatures into a distasteful smear which got in the way of a clear view as well as looking disgusting. This doesn’t seem to happen so often these days. Is the change due to a shortage of bugs, or is it the design of windscreens that has changed? The ‘Splatometer’ test Investigations have raised the issue that climate change and over-use of pesticides has indeed decreased the level of certain types of insects. A crude ‘splatometer’ test was carried out by the RSPB some years ago, where they counted the number of bugs that had been collected on vehicle number plates. They recorded