Despite big gains in recent years, Portugal finds itself at loggerheads with the EU over road safety. All-electric FormulaE racing has a very swish new base in the UK. There’s been a terrible bus crash in Turkey; a swingeing congestion charge suggested for Brussels, a vast amount of uninsured drivers in Greece while a new customs dispute threatens courier services to Russia.

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PORTUGAL IN THE DOCK OVER ROAD SAFETY.

Commission takes country to task over paperwork.

Lisbon. Photo via www.brisa.pt

Despite record low road deaths in 2013 – and more than 60 amendments to its Highway Code from 1 January – Portugal is being taken to court by the European Commission for failing to adopt road safety plans.

EU countries are required to draw up detailed guidance for assessing safety on the trans-European Network (TEN-T) roads within their territory.

Despite the deadlines for adopting the guidance passing in December 2011, and submitting the plans to the Commission in March 2012, Portugal has yet to do so.

Portugal only has the TEN-T ‘Atlantic Corridor’ inside its borders, linking Porto and-Lisbon with Valladolid/Bilbao and Madrid respectively.

Meanwhile, annual road deaths in Portugal have been cut almost in half since 2001. According to the Commission’s figures, 748 deaths were recorded in 2012, a cut of 19% on 2011. That’s 71 deaths per million inhabitants compared to the European average of 55 per million.

The most dangerous parts of the national network are in urban areas (55% of fatal accidents) followed by rural roads (36%). Motorways account for just 9%.

Provisional figures for 2013 put the number of road deaths down a further 10% (though the number of accidents increased by 1%). Portugal is yet to respond to the Commission’s charges.

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The all-electric Formula E racing series moves into a custom-built technology park at Donington Park Circuit on 1 May, just 100m from the Melbourne Hairpin. The 44,000ft² facility will house premises for each of the ten teams with 150 staff in total. Testing will start immediately ahead of the first race in Beijing in September.

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TURKEY. At least 21 people have been killed and 29 injured in a bus crash near Kayseri, central Anatolia. The recently built vehicle rolled down the embankment on the barrier-less D300 on a cross-country tip from Istanbul. The cause is not known though it was snowing and foggy. BELGIUM. The city would need to charge drivers €12/day to reduce traffic levels says a new report. The amount has been dismissed by one politician as ‘anti-social’. It was recently reported that traffic in Brussels has fallen by 7% in the past decade. The city is shortly to consider two separate reports on congestion charging. GREECE. One million vehicles are uninsured according to an industry body. Pro population that’s an even higher proportion than the 4m uninsured cars in Italy reported last week. There are an estimated 1.2m in the UK. RUSSIA. DHL, DPD, TNT, FedEx and UPS will stop courier deliveries to private customers later this month out of frustration with delays due to new customs regulations says The Moscow Times. It’s not clear if this is a permanent or temporary move.

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Does the audacious theft of a humble Vauxhall Cascada in the Netherlands represent a new phase in car crime? Meanwhile, Mercedes reveals its lavish launch plans in the Algarve.

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ADVENTURE CASCADA: INTERCONTINENTAL ROAD TRIP NETHERLANDS TO IRAQ.

Cars stolen in Utrecht turn up 220 miles north of Baghdad.

Opel Cascada: designed for road trips but surely not intercontinental marathons.

Many cars stolen in Europe end up in West or Central Asia. Before Christmas a Porsche and a Land Rover found in a shipping container in Lithuania were en route to Afghanistan.

A couple of days after that 200 cars taken in Germany turned up in Tajikistan (allegedly being driven by people connected to the ruling party).

Earlier this month the Uzbek authorities announced a further 20 luxury vehicles, all stolen in the EU and due to cross the border into Tajikistan, had been discovered on a train from Latvia.

Most intercontinental vehicle crime is committed by organised gangs who forge documents en masse and move them around in bulk. But an extraordinary 2,900 mile journey undertaken by an Opel Cascada and VW Golf convertible recently shows it happens on a small scale too, and is no less sophisticated. Exactly how the thieves – almost – got away with it in this case is still a mystery.

The entire saga is currently being turned into a book (and possibly a film too), but to cut a long story short the two cars were taken from a rental agency near Utrecht, driven overland to Kurdistan in northern Iraq and eventually recovered by their determined owner.

Not only did they pass through four separate border checks (Schengen-Romania-Bulgaria-Greece-Turkey) but when they arrived in Arbil, 220 miles north of Baghdad, their satellite trackers were immediately removed. Small scale or not, this was no opportunistic theft.

And what is it about the Netherlands? Within Europe it’s just about the furthest point from Kurdistan. For the first time in a decade, car thefts increased there last year, up 3% to 11,700 while the percentage of cars returned to their owners fell from 46% to 43%. Are they all being taken on intercontinental road trips?

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Also, 07.02.14: a German man is suing police, alleging they failed to act fast enough when his rented BMW 7-series was stolen in 2006. The car was tracked to Italy but spirited to Syria before police intervened.

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PORTUGAL: Mercedes-Benz will spend €8m on hotels alone in the next three months as it flies 15,000 members of the world’s media to the Algarve to attend car launches according to @ThePortugalNews. New models include the GLA crossover, C-Class and high-end versions of the S-Class. Perhaps surprisingly Mercedes is the fifth bestselling make in Portugal and has the second highest market share behind Germany. The Algarve is the launch location of choice for both Porsche and Jaguar too – that’s why we’re heading straight there as soon as our new car arrives (date TBA). Mind you, it could get a bit crowded. We might go to Poland and Belarus instead.

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Last updated 18:30 GMT.

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CHANNEL DELAYS: Brittany Ferries Bilbao-Portsmouth delayed 60mins, return also.

WEATHER ALERT: Amber alerts: flooding/heavy rain France, heavy rain/storms Italy, high winds southern Spain. Snow Switzerland. High winds/snow Poland. Heavy rain/storms Western Balkans.

WEATHER: Unsettled across South, heavy rain Spain and Italy. Scandinavia cold. Snow Alps.

TRAFFIC: north west Italy: flash flood A12 Genoa, see below, and strong winds A6 Savona. On/off slow A76 Millau-Clermont Ferrand, snow, earlier accident currently no delays. Leverkusen (Cologne) A1 Rhine bridge weekend road works. Queues now gone.

ROADS: Snow high ground Switzerland, Austria and France. Major routes are open though A2/A13 Switzerland has snow in places and some local roads are closed.

Heavy rain/snow/landslide road closures French Riviera/north west Italy. Article in French with details.

Snow south Pyrenees affecting roads yesterday central and east, C-14, A136, A138 and N230. Snow chains needed.

See Travel/Traffic/Weather for more.

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The Porsche 911 Safari – coming soon.

Have you heard about the new 911 Safari?

Just before Christmas, Auto Bild’s Motor Revue magazine majored on a new 911 concept expected to appear at April’s Beijing Motor Show. We’ve finally got our hands on a copy.

Based on a turbo-style body – though powered by a high torque, 370bhp engine – the Safari apparently features some serious off-road kit, including a low range gearbox and active, long travel suspension.

Other features include taller but narrower tyres, high ground clearance, beefed up underbody protection, dust proof air intakes and – not least – two cute spotlights on the GT3-style bonnet.

Bild says it isn’t a study for a future World Rally Championship car. Instead it’s intended for regular drivers in markets where the roads aren’t so good, like China, Russia and the Middle East. The engine even auto adjusts for poor fuel quality.

The 1984 Paris-Dakar winning Type 953 Porsche 911 driven by Rene Metge and Dominique Lemoyne.

The Safari might not be intended for the WRC but nobody mentioned endurance rallying.

This is well trod ground for Porsche which won Paris-Dakar in 1983 with the 953 – a one-off 911 4×4 variant – and in 1985 with the exotic 911-based 959.

With F1 racer Mark Webber heading up its 2014 Le Mans effort, is it beyond the realms of sensible speculation to imagine Robert Kubica, former F1 star now up-and-coming rally driver, leading a new assault on Dakar?

We suspect that all-round motor racing fan @156Sharknose speaks for many people when he says, ‘A Martini Porsche 911 in rallying with Kubica at the wheel would be mega… I might explode with excitement!’

Whatever Porsche’s motorsport intentions, it’s clear the Safari is on its way. Compact, 4×4 911s already make a good case for themselves as go-anywhere, all-weather motors. Adding real off-road ability would make them completely unstoppable.

Just don’t say, ‘not available in right hand drive’.

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Monte Carlo Rally: VW driver Sebastien Ogier won in commanding style but the star of this year’s event was undoubtedly the weather. For the past few days the region has been battered by heavy rain with landslides closing many roads (see above). The rally drivers avoided most of that but on the last day, yesterday, competitors faced deep snow on the Col de Turini then fog and torrential rain on the final Sospel stage. The latter made for difficult viewing all round as, in the pitch black, some drivers turned off their headlights to pick up the verges with sidelights only. Third placed Kris Meeke (Citroen) claimed the first podium for a British driver in more than a decade. The Word Rally Championship returns with the Rally of Sweden, 5-8 February.

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Last updated 18:00 GMT.

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CHANNEL DELAYS: Brittany Ferries Santander-Portsmouth 20:30 delay 60mins.

WEATHER ALERT: Amber alerts: flooding/heavy rain south east France, north west Italy. Snow Switzerland and north Portugal. High winds Montenegro.

WEATHER: Snow Scandinavia/Alps/Pyrenees. Rain+snow Spain/Portugal. Cold east Europe. General wind/rain.

TRAFFIC: A1 Leverkusen, Rhine bridge long term weekend road works, around 50min delay each way. C-14 Andorra-Lleida snow delays at La Seu d’Urgell down to 30mins, see below.

ROADS: Snow Switzerland + Austria – some local road closures. A13 Bellinzona-Chur closed to trucks earlier but now reopened. Germany: delays both ways A1 .

Heavy rain/snow/landslide road closures French Riviera/north west Italy. Article in French with details.

Snow south Pyrenees affecting roads central and east, see above C-14, also A136, A138 and N230. Snow chains needed.

See Travel/Traffic/Weather for more.

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The First Bosphorus Bridge, Istanbul this morning. At this distance, the only way to tell it from the Fatih Sultan Mehmet bridge, the only other across the Bosphorus Strait – connecting Europe and Asia – is by the zig-zag cable stays. A highly controversial third bridge is planned, at the north end of the Strait, but a high level on-going corruption investigation has interestingly implicated many of the movers and shakers behind the project. Photo via @LeighTurnerFCO

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Silvio Berlusconi’s – surprisingly old – Audi A6 is egged on his way to a meeting with rival political leader Matteo Renzi in Rome today. Luckily the damage was less than superficial. Corriere della Serra reports this morning that 4m cars in Italy are not insured – that’s 2.8m drivers, or 8% of the total. The average cost of insurance in Italy is apparently €491. Photo Comandante Nebbia, @mentecritica

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