[Closed] fuel prices.....

yeah £6/l thats really stupid

you realise how much its already crippling small businesses do you

I run a transit van for work and it costs me about £7000 + a year in diesel

Edukator - Member

Fuel is far too cheap, hundreds or maybe thousands of cars go past my house everyday and only a tens of bicycles.

I'll vote for £6/l. Smaller cars driven slower can't be a bad thing.

Obviously a troll post, but fuel at that price would put me out of work, and I don't have that big a commute.
Oh, and drive a Nissan Micra.
Have a think about that between your bouts of bitter jealousy at the car drivers who pass your poorly situated house each day.
😉

sbob - Member

Obviously a troll post,

Mr E may be a little 'thought provoking' at times, but 'troll' is probably a bit strong...

i've just ridden home from work, and right now i'd also vote for £6/l if it would slow some of the murderous bastards down a little bit.

(i'll be grumbling about the price at the pump tomorrow though as i've got fill up the gas-guzzler...)

People make choices. If fuel is more expensive they will choose:

- to live closer to work

- to use public transport

- to change their business model (the market price for services will adapt so the impact on small businesses will be negligible - every plumber will have higher cost so the market price for plumbers will increase. Given that most plumbing expenditure in non-discretiionary spending the consumer will suck it up and spend less on jet fuel for that non-discretionary holiday).

No I'm not trolling, I really believe fuel is too cheap. As poof I'm not connected to mains gas, produce a lot more electricity than I consume, use public transport and my bike much more than my motor vehicles, and would happily pay four times the current price for petrol.

"The government needs tax though, it's got to come from somewhere."

Absolutely, but I believe it needs less.

Ah, so I'm mistaken in thinking we have a deficit - it's actually a surplus?

Obviously a troll post, but fuel at that price would put me out of work, and I don't have that big a commute.
Oh, and drive a Nissan Micra.
Have a think about that between your bouts of bitter jealousy at the car drivers who pass your poorly situated house each day.

Can I just check who exactly it is has a poorly situated house? I'm not sure anybody is jealous of people stuck in a car on a commute.

Too many folk move miles from work to get cheap housing.

I paid a little more in the long term knowledge that staying closer to the city meant long term i saves money by not being forced to run a car.

My colleague bought another 10 miles out (25 miles from the office) as in his words " i got a bigger house than you for the same price"

Whos the dummy ?

Sadly thats the thought process that goes through folks heads.

People like the convienance of cars and would probably bury them selves in debt than give it up if fuel prices rose.

Madame walks to work in eleven minutes, my son has walked to every school and may even walk to university. My "poorly placed house" is in the most desirable part of town with the highest average household income, the highest price per m2, and within walking distance of every serivce you could wish for, and all that for a very good reason; location, location, location.

Edit: I nearly forgot to mention that the bus for the ski resort is an easy walk away even with ski boots and a couple of pairs of skis.

aracer - Member

Can I just check who exactly it is has a poorly situated house? I'm not sure anybody is jealous of people stuck in a car on a commute.

The guy who has thousands of cars passing his door.
I don't get stuck on my commute.

Edukator - Member

People make choices. If fuel is more expensive they will choose:

- to live closer to work

- to use public transport

As someone who obviously has far too much money to have any understanding of what it is like for people on a low income, let me point out to you that not everyone can live closer to work, not everyone can use public transport to get to their place of work, and there is not an abundance of work to choose from at the moment.

I sincerely hope that helps you understand.

I haven't counted the cars but traffic isn't an issue. A thousand cars is about one a minute during the active day. One car while tying this. Triple glazing means I have to listen for them.

Edit: I've no doubt been through periods poorer than you, I didn't use any fuel at all then.

The guy who has thousands of cars passing his door.

Oh - not the person who couldn't afford to drive to work because he lives too far away then?

I was joking about your house being poorly situated, and being jealous, just incase you thought I was serious. Your view is so frankly silly and unrealistic though, that I thought the humour was fitting.
🙂

aracer - Member

Oh - not the person who couldn't afford to drive to work because he lives too far away then?

I used to work 200yds away.
Unfortunately, I no longer have that job and took what was available.
I can't afford to move closer.
Tough times, but I do what I can to ensure I'm not a burden on others.
🙂

trail_rat - Member

Too many folk move miles from work to get cheap housing.

I paid a little more in the long term knowledge that staying closer to the city meant long term i saves money by not being forced to run a car.

My colleague bought another 10 miles out (25 miles from the office) as in his words " i got a bigger house than you for the same price"

Whos the dummy?

Some people made that choice before the fuel price escalator was introduced, unfortunately.

Why unrealistic? I've biked a hilly 33km to work with the business suit in a bag (but only when train times didn't fit), lived in my business premises and generally found solutions that didn't involve regular use of a vehicle.

Are fuel prices the issue or is it our desire/need to make money versus quality of life style?
I work in Lowestoft. I used to live in Norwich (a fine city) but then I spent an hour each way driving to work. Now I live in Lowestoft (a bit of a dump) but spend 20 minutes biking to work along the sea front. I get home at 6 and have a family dinner rather than 7 and miss it all.

I suppose the point I'm rambling towards (after a bottle of wine) is that most of us could probably choose to live closer to work. We just have to choose where we want to live. And not where we want to work.

So let's say I lost my job. I'd need to find another one quickly. I'd have to take the first one that came up, even if it was in a different city. I can't afford to move. It's not always possible.

Our jobs are not stable and secure these days. Moving house is very expensive and not always possible.

friend from Doha told me yesterday it cost her approx £7 to fill her CRV with petrol approx 0.10p ltr. I just filled mine today the cost £66.00.

MrsBouys Parents who live in rural locations and have to go shopping etc.

We are seeing the results of the "me first" mentality coming home to roost. All those people who in the rural areas that shopped at the big supermarket because it was cheap and caused their local shops to close down will live to regret it, or will bugger off to the towns again leaving the rural poor to their fate. I think I'll open a shop in a rural location in about 10 years and make a comfortable if hard working living.

It's not [i]always[/i] possible Molgrips. What though, if you were offered 2 jobs? One close and one far away? Is it so terrible that your choice between the two might be influenced by the cost of commuting.

trail_rat - Member
Too many folk move miles from work to get cheap housing.

I paid a little more in the long term knowledge that staying closer to the city meant long term i saves money by not being forced to run a car.

My colleague bought another 10 miles out (25 miles from the office) as in his words " i got a bigger house than you for the same price"

Whos the dummy?

Let's say his car costs 15p fuel+5p other per mile to run, it's £3.50 extra a day to drive from his area instead of yours. Guessing the difference in equivalent house price was at least 10k to make it significant enough to talk about. That's not far off 10 years commuting at current prices!

Not knocking you, because I think you've done the right thing personally, but on driving costs alone that distance is not significant.

I know several people that has happened to, Molgrips. They have found a cheap room to rent for four night a week (though usually only two or three as they've agreed to a degree of home working or regrouping their hours over three or four days).

Edukator - Member

Why unrealistic? I've biked a hilly 33km to work with the business suit in a bag (but only when train times didn't fit), lived in my business premises and generally found solutions that didn't involve regular use of a vehicle.

You had your own business.
Congratulations.
Not everyone is fortunate enough to be in that position, and not evryone has shower facilities at work.
If I turned up to work soaking wet on my bike, I'd be sacked. 💡

So let's say I lost my job. I'd need to find another one quickly. I'd have to take the first one that came up, even if it was in a different city. I can't afford to move. It's not always possible.

Say you didn't have a car, would you then choose to take a job in a different city? How about if fuel was £6 a litre?

Is everybody really missing the point that we're talking about a paradigm shift here?

The cost of fuel barely makes up for all the bad things about living in Qatar

Anyone can start their own business. I was fortunate enough to be unemployed and so in need of employment I had to start my own business.

Edukator - Member

Anyone can start their own business.

😆

I helped a little old lady get another job (cleaning) recently after being layed off.
She was in tears.
She wouldn't have a ****ing clue where to start.
Your attitude is ridiculous and offensive, and I am not easily offended.

Edukator - Member

I was fortunate enough to be unemployed and so in need of employment I had to start my own business.

You were fortunate in obviously not being in the situation of living from hand to mouth.
Many are. 💡

Your attitude is ridiculous and offensive, and I am not easily offended.

You cannot be serious.

Edukator - Member

You cannot be serious.

[i]You[/i] cannot be serious.
Let's make fuel more expensive!
Really hit the poor!
Yay!

Really hit the polluter.

if we do it we need to substantially improve the public transport system as not all of us can commute to work by bike or always by public transport.
I try to but a number of places i work at costs me x 3 of the fuel and takes x3 as long each way- 2 hour commute with 3 train changes and a walk at either end.
Two of them i pretty much cannot reach on public transport without using bus then a train then a bus again so I cannot get there for the correct start time.
Given all the crap I need to carry it is not feasible to cycle and there are no showers when I get there

I am happy to adapt to reduce car usage and increased costs for fuel but they would need to massively change transport or else I would be in trouble. I could change jobs ....but it would require a job to be there or nearer home- even factoring in the wage cut i could take by fuel savings there are still no jobs in what I do.

Edukator we cannot all set up our own business and retire at 40 - I suspect we all wish we could. if we could we could end poverty and unemployment tomorrow

the houses were similar prices - his is bigger . if i wanted his house here id be about 30 grand extra

how ever im within bike commuting distance of almost all the industrial centres of my industry in this city.

his house has good driving access to 1 and if he wanted access to the others he would be sat in traffic for an extra hour every day.

my math also factored in the fact i do not need to run a reliable- natch expensive car as i do not rely on it at all for work.

i reckoned the payback to be near 10 years on my figures IF i bought 1 near new car and ran it for those 10 years..... im early in my career and plan to stay here for a number of years or at least rent it out if i go to work abroad hence location location location......

then theres the lifestyle - commuting 25 miles here can take an hour easily on a good day. riding my bike 15 miles takes 1 hour - with the added bonus of not going to the gym later.

my point also being that while its not unaffordable NOW things are heading such that they may well be in the future. while im not as extreme in my view as edukator i do believe people could minimise their exposure to fuel prices by not striving for that bigger house but infact choosing to fit their needs. To much status comes from your house imo. I regularly get stick for buying an ex council house (albe it 1 of only 8 houses in the middle of the countryside in an area designated a wild life preserve for red kites ) and i realise this isnt everyone but its a significant proportion of the folk ive met.

42. I found an all-over wash possible in any toilets with a hand basin and toilet cubicle. That's every company I ever visited. People have bed baths for years in hospitals.

Edukator's views on this are a touch extreme, but it wasn't that long ago that most people worked within their local towns and villages. You only have to go back 20 or 30 years. It was the affordability of motoring that changed that, and changed the demographics of Britain.

Of course, many would view those changes as a good thing. But after massive growth the car peaked here in 2006 or something and has been in decline ever since.

We see progress as, well, progress. Bigger is better. More the merrier. Etc. But so many people are agitated in their cars nowadays. They're great, I couldn't be without mine, but like so many things in Western society today they are vastly overused, and thus the pleasure is sucked out of them.

I do hope that one day we can move towards a more pleasant structure where noisy and dangerous machinery no longer forms such a massive part of the world. Imagine standing in a city that is blissfully quiet, while you listen to the birds. Imagine a world where public transport is a joyous experience! Yes we can dream. I welcome the day they serve breakfast on buses.

This doesn't really have anything to do with the price of fuel, but I do think there are valid, and even much more preferable alternatives, even if it does take a while to get there.

It has everything to do with the price of fuel, Butcher. Your utopia will never come to be while petrol costs only £1.40/l.

Is everybody really missing the point that we're talking about a paradigm shift here?

Well that would be lovely. And I fully agree, a world without commuting would be indescribably better than the one we have now.

However, people seem to be talking about simply whacking the price of fuel up. If you did that without any kind of workforce restructuring the results would be catastrophic.

Edukator, you're really not coming across very well on this thread. You seem to think everyone should be just like you. I'm very glad they're not, incidentally!

while im not as extreme in my view as edukator i do believe people could minimise their exposure to fuel prices by not striving for that bigger house but infact choosing to fit their needs.

I don't think we are striving for huge houses - this is a red herring. However many of us would prefer not to bring up our families surrounded by poverty, crime and deprivation. This is what makes us want to live in 'nice' areas - you can't really blame us for that can you?

Your utopia will never come to be while petrol costs only £1.40/l.

The big problem with simply hiking the price is that it affects everyone indiscriminately. It's a regressive tax. There are far more intelligent ways of reducing the travelling people do.

I regularly get stick for buying an ex council house

Who from? Mates taking the pi55? Never come across that before.

I am in the fortunate/unfortunate position of not having a regular place of work so I was free to buy where I most preferred to live - with the cost of usually having to commute for around 3 hours a day 🙁

The big problem with simply hiking the price is that it affects everyone indiscriminately. It's a regressive tax.

Well would be good to get rid of VED and add a bit to fuel instead.

Some intelligent ways then, Molgrips.

Affordable, efficient public transport

Integrating housing needs into industrial planning applications. 19C factory owners built housing for workers nearby. Current planners ban this type of arrangement.

Council house programmes with means-testing of candidates and priority given to people working with walking distance.

Requisition of empty residential property after two years and a super tax on empty business property.

More flexibility in property use, allow any business property to be converted for residential use (but not the other way around).

Worker passes for buses and trains with a maximum fare per km.

I don't think we are striving for huge houses - this is a red herring. However many of us would prefer not to bring up our families surrounded by poverty, crime and deprivation. This is what makes us want to live in 'nice' areas - you can't really blame us for that can you?

Its shit town planing that has resulted in for the urban sprawl though. Look at the popular nice house that people like. Lots of nice small old cottages many terraced of smei-detached. Look at all the shit house being built in new estates, Tiny detached houses with the to smei. Poor use of land and positioned so as to make driving essential. Add out of town shopping centres + out of town business parks all separate from each other all with their own car park rather than making a destination that encompasses uses in one place it is sprawled making public transport infeasible.

Edukator - Member

19C factory owners built housing for workers nearby. Current planners ban this type of arrangement.

This post suggests you're aware of some of the problems encountered today, yet others are quite contrary.
Care to enlighten? 😐

To answer the op's post i paid £1.48 per litre recently when i filled up with shell v-power, my car is rather old (30yrs) and needs a high octane fuel 98ron+ due to the valves and valve seats and as it has been set-up on the rolling road to run best on shell v-power it's the only premium fuel i will use, thus i have a 32mile journey to get to my nearest shell garage. Petrol prices are a ****in rip-off for those on low wages, especially if you stay in a very rural area and rely on a car to get about, admittingly i don't drive anywhere near as much as i used to a few years ago when i had "disposable cash" and didn't care about sub 20mpg in my previous car. Nowadays a tank of fuel with very careful driving will give me an average of 33mpg or near enough a 400mile range which lasts me two weeks getting back and forward to two minimum wage jobs in rural locations, despite staying within 25miles either way of the trails at Kirroughtree/Mabie/Dalbeattie i have only rode them once this year due to the petrol costs involved.

Fuel is far too cheap, hundreds or maybe thousands of cars go past my house everyday and only a tens of bicycles.

I'll vote for £6/l. Smaller cars driven slower can't be a bad thing.

People make choices. If fuel is more expensive they will choose:

- to live closer to work

- to use public transport

Madame walks to work in eleven minutes, my son has walked to every school and may even walk to university. My "poorly placed house" is in the most desirable part of town with the highest average household income, the highest price per m2, and within walking distance of every serivce you could wish for, and all that for a very good reason; location, location, location.

Edit: I nearly forgot to mention that the bus for the ski resort is an easy walk away even with ski boots and a couple of pairs of skis.

I haven't counted the cars but traffic isn't an issue. A thousand cars is about one a minute during the active day. One car while tying this. Triple glazing means I have to listen for them.

Edit: I've no doubt been through periods poorer than you, I didn't use any fuel at all then.

Edukator : Found this pic for you to cut out and keep for future reference, no need to thank me 😉

[img] [/img]

Let's make fuel more expensive!
Really hit the poor!

don't drive then. Or moan. Or drive n moan. Is this a cycling forum or OIL corporation mediation class? let's all ask ourselves how we're doing with our oil CONSUMPTION shall we, shall we? hmmnn. RIDE A ****EN BIKE!!! cycle as much as you can then, cos you knoe fo sho it's the most efficient form of getting about? Just put your metaphorical forum cleats where your bonkers opinions are and ride a ****en bike to and from work you lazy gobtarts...etc etc ride to work..blitheer wibble..