Why is no one making more of a fuss?

Because its pointless?

oh no he’s back with that old one again 🙁

Because I can still move myslef and 2 tones of metal 300miles for £40, seems reasnoble.

And half an hour spent terroroising horses, cyclists and ramblers on B-roads in the MG is still cheeper than the same time spent in the pub.

15p off a litre at morrisons if you spend over £60…

Filled up yesterday and it cost over £100.

Ouch.

Why is no one making more of a fuss?

Hooray for the Great British Apathy!!!

15p off a litre at morrisons if you spend over £60

Ah, thanks for reminding me about that! For my car (60 litre tank), that would save me £9, although in reality I never run it dry so it’s more like 50/55 litres … still a 7 or 8 £ saving … although I usually get my shopping delivered as I find physically going to the store ends up costing me extra due to the “ooh, that looks nice..” syndrome, so I suspect shopping at Morrisons for cheaper fuel wouldn’t actually save me anything 🙂

Won’t be long before its £1.50. Then £1.60. Then £1.70. And so on

And it’ll make eff all difference. The fat, bone idle population of this country will still carry on driving their 4×4’s. Some Lardy truckers may drive slowly down a motorway if when it hits £2.00

If I was just using the stuff for fun then I don’t see the problem, but £120 for 540 miles in the van is going to cripple our business 🙁

“If I was just using the stuff for fun then I don’t see the problem, but £120 for 540 miles in the van is going to cripple our business”

Then your going to have to find a way of doing your business differently.

FD, we’ve tried everything I can think of, yes even thought of pedal power, but how do you move mowers, strimmers, fuel and a couple of tons of garden waste around ? Seriously if you have any ideas then I’m listening. We looked into electric but £51000 for a peugot boxer with a 60 mile range ain’t going to work.

When I cycle to work I see, at a guess, 3 other cyclists, 20 pedestrians, 50 people on buses and 500 cars.
Fuel is far too cheap.

^ just a thought … should the Govt subsidise business mileage?

dropoff – all your rivals will be in the same position – its a level playing field. You just have to increase prices to cover the increased fuel

Cos it’s been around £1.30 for ages and ages, and each 10p increase is proportionally less.

Quentin Wilson was on the telly this morning claiming it cost £140 to fill a family car. Like hell – if you start twisting facts or taking extreme cases to further your argument it’s only going to turn people off. My car has a giant tank and still only costs about £85 to fill.

FD, we’ve tried everything I can think of, yes even thought of pedal power, but how do you move mowers, strimmers, fuel and a couple of tons of garden waste around ?

Interesting problem this. I wonder…..

Maybe like-minded local businesses could collaborate and ‘van-share’ as it were. So you all pay for a van and a driver who drives around all day servicing half a dozen local outfits….

And it’ll make eff all difference. The fat, bone idle population of this country will still carry on driving their 4×4’s. Some Lardy truckers may drive slowly down a motorway if when it hits £2.00

this. until someone has the balls to hike prices properly (which they won’t because the Daily Mail voters would then end their political careers) it ain’t going to make the slightest difference.

TJ, yeah great idea, unfortunately it won’t work. People like you just stop having the work done and do it themselves. Theyre being squeezed too.

Wanna come lay some paving slabs for us dropoff?

If I was just using the stuff for fun then I don’t see the problem, but £120 for 540 miles in the van is going to cripple our business

Either pass that onto your customers, be more efficient (molgrips has a good idea) or do fewer miles.

yeah great idea, unfortunately it won’t work. People like you just stop having the work done and do it themselves. Theyre being squeezed too.

No they won’t, as they have to pay for the petrol too. If custom does drop then it’s the pricing elswhere that’s at fault, not the petrol.

^ just a thought … should the Govt subsidise business mileage?

They already do, you can claim the VAT back, so business petrol is 20% cheeper.

When I cycle to work I see, at a guess, 3 other cyclists, 20 pedestrians, 50 people on buses and 500 cars.
Fuel is far too cheap.

Maybe, but along with alcohol, its a shame that people can’t be persuaded out of their cars by the attraction of fitness and wellbeing, rather than the fact they are taxed out of it financially…

Im a IT Consultant, I drive about 1000 miles per month. I cant ride to my customers, there are deadlines to be met and arriving on my bike serveral hours after a server has gone down is not an option.

My business is slowly being crippled. Ideas?

When I cycle to work I see, at a guess, 3 other cyclists, 20 pedestrians, 50 people on buses and 500 cars.
Fuel is far too cheap.

Possibly.

Although a lot of people have made choices on where to live in relation to their work and family/friends based on the ability to run a car. (as a balance, there are also people who are just downright bl$$dy bone-idle).

There will be people who have no alternative but to drive, other than moving house or finding a different job.

Fortunately for me I can cycle to work (it’s a choice, but wouldn’t be too big a deal if it was a necessity). However, to get to work on public transport takes around 2 hours on various combinations of bus, train & walking. I only live 11.5 miles from my office.

Society will need to move back to living a more ‘local’ life in the face of running a car becoming unaffordable.

Goodness knows how, or if, that’ll ever work.

As an aside, my wife thinks it’s acceptable to drive our 5yo son the 1 mile to school 😕 This kind of mentality isn’t helping anyone(fortunately she can’t drive. yet.)

This link implies that fuel prices have increased 25% in real terms since 1983. Given that we have chosen to this over time by selecting governments which have deliberately increased fuel tax over inflation to try to reduce road travel – it does not seem a lot.

My business is slowly being crippled. Ideas?

None of your competitors can get cheaper fuel, so why is it a problem?

As a general point, fuel is still a fairly small component of the overall cost of running a car.

@dropoff – some kind of fuel surcharge on your prices for greater distance travelled?

dawson – you are Richard Branson and I claim my £5! 😀

Fuel over £1.40 per litre….

ohnohesback – Member

Why is no one making more of a fuss?

when did you last check your tyre pressure?

i think that fuel is expensive, but it seems most people don’t. i’ll believe they do when they start taking even the smallest steps to use less.

like: checking their tyre pressure regularly.

like: sticking to speed limits – and not full-beaming those that do.

I can’t see any easy answers but there observations that you see that make you think why does it happen this way:

eg. People will commute to other counties for work, where as another person will make the exact opposite journey to commute to their work.

Companies bid for work miles from their base eg. the firm that cleans the windows in our office have to travel 100 miles to get here, but there must be other local window cleaning co’s.

Subsidise electric cars. I can’t have one as I commute >100 miles per day, but my wife travels 20 miles per day. We can’t afford to spend £25k on an electric car though.

Im a IT Consultant, I drive about 1000 miles per month. I cant ride to my customers, there are deadlines to be met and arriving on my bike serveral hours after a server has gone down is not an option.

My business is slowly being crippled. Ideas?

Encourage your customers to use a datacentre near to you, so you don’t have to travel?

Use a very efficient car

Bike + train + bike

Pass on the cost of fuel to your customers

Drop customers who are further away and try to get more local business

Collaborate with competitors; is there someone nearer to the customer who is currently driving to a customer near to you?

And it’ll make eff all difference. The fat, bone idle population of this country will still carry on driving their 4×4’s. Some Lardy truckers may drive slowly down a motorway if when it hits £2.00

Christ, did someone have an embarrassing fat mother, get called Fat Bob at school, some deep resentment towards fat people (4×4’s and lorries too)

Im a IT Consultant architect, I drive cycle about 1000 miles per month. I cant ride to my customers, there are deadlines to be met and arriving on my bike serveral hours after a server has gone down before those held up by the Jubilee Line falling over is not an option ace.
My business is slowly being crippled actively recruiting. Ideas?

FTFY

No they won’t, as they have to pay for the petrol too.

I don’t have to pay for petrol to clean up my own garden.

i think that fuel is expensive, but it seems most people don’t. i’ll believe they do when they start taking even the smallest steps to use less

Fuel usage has been going down for a few years, so someone is.

aP – it’s different in London. Most of your clients will be a bike ride away. If you are servicing clients spread out across regional towns and citiies who could be 100 miles away in any direction, cycling becomes impractical.

If you are servicing clients spread out across regional towns and citiies who could be 100 miles away in any direction, cycling becomes impractical. your competition will have the same fuel bills as you.

dogbert – no resentment. I’m hardly svelte myself.

But what amazes me when I drop my kids off at school, for example, is how many people (usually in the ubiquitous 4×4) appear to have, to all intents and purposes, completely lost the use of their legs.

They want to drive literally from door to door. Everywhere! Parking 1/2 a mile away and walking down (which the school keep suggesting) seems tantamount to child abuse in their eyes

I have noticed that the M6 seems a bit slower than normal at the WE, doing 80 was above average whereas a few months back I’d have been passed by just about everyone bar the lorries.

It’ll take ages, but we’ll all just to have to stop travelling round so much.

If fuel was cheaper, the roads would fill up.

Number of people taking the driving test is already in sharp decline.

I would guess that the number of people taking a driving test is more influenced by the cost of insurance for 17 year olds and the chances of getting a job to pay for it.

Hooray for the Great British Apathy!!!

This. I rarely drive these days, but it would be nice if the cost of public transport was slashed in line with fuel duty increases to give us some kind of alternative.

Write to your MPs and complain about the latter, people…

I’ve been looking for a job nearer home as the fuel costs are starting to get stupid. But, there’s not a great deal around.
Since about September last year I have been driving at 60mph, which does help the fuel go further. But it is frustrating when you drive as economically as possible and then get caught in a 20min traffic jam that undoes all your saintly efforts.

aP – so you live in/near London where public transport is leagues ahead of anywhere else. Most major cities have decent public transport, but a lot of places have very disjointed public transport systems to get people where they need to go.
At my previous place of work, commute time by car was a little over an hour. I broke my hand and had to go by public transport – it took 4.5hrs each way…..I literally could have cycled it quicker (although would have been absolutely knackered).
I would like to have the option of public transport, but it really isn’t viable. People are being forced out of their cars, but I don’t think there is enough being done to bolster alternative means of transport, in parallel.

One of the issues around cycling seems to be that towns & cities aren’t designed to accommodate safe cycling. It’s all very well people going on about commuting by bike on a cycling forum, but for average joe the thought of cycling on busy roads, getting amongst the traffic and battling it everyday is a no-go (well, it is at least with people I have spoken to about it).
For example, I live in a town about 10 miles from the centre of Peterborough. If I found a job in the centre of Peterborough and wanted to cycle in, I would have to cycle along several miles of NSL dual carriageway, followed by several miles of 50/40 dual carriageway where the lanes are quite narrow & there really isn’t adequate space for cycling. I do see people cycling occasionally along this route and other vehicles end up either waiting for them & overtaking safely which results in large queues or people pass very closely & dangerously. The routes into the city would need large scale re-work for a larger amount of people to feel comfortable cycling to work.

I’ve just gome through the office relocation thing and from doing 300 miles a week for work I’m doing zero! I was driving miss daisy to eek out the MPG and keep the costs down.
The offset is that I’m now having to use public transport which is costing me about the same per week as fuel if i buy a weekly travel card. Mind you the office is now a further 45 miles away (each way) so potentially another 450 miles a week if I was driving.
I must be in the minority as in my case public transport is dirt cheap compared to the car. Actually, if I bought a year long season ticket for £1150 it’ll cost me 3.3p a mile to be driven to and from the office. Mind you if I got the train it would be a different story!