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[b]TJ thinks that[/b] Motoring gets massive subsidy from the taxpayer
FTFY.
Those figures are FAR from cut and dried, imo. Last time we did this the figures you showed me smelled highly of bullsht.
DO NOT POST THEM AGAIN OR POST THE SAME FLAWED EXPLANATION I REMEMBER IT FROM LAST TIME THANKS.
Also you'd have to offset all of the above against the enormous cost to the economy, and hence the tax take, of restricting car usage
His figures didn't factor that in.
.
I JUST DONE A POO!
I think all the excitment of this pointless bickering induced it....
that is all, please continue...
Seeing molgrips all shouty does that to me as well
Oh - and molgrips - I know it does - the numbers do not lie 🙂 You just don't want to believe it
I hate threads like this. Most disturbing to agree with TJ.
Sorry aracer. You can get medicine for that
Still on for Sunday,
TJ will be appearing via broadband web camera
Of course, its them that don't mind seeing the price of fuel rise ever higher and see the UK car driver suffer.
What do you mean, 'suffer'?
Owning a car is little more than a luxury for the vast majority of drivers really. No matter how much they individually or even collectively bleat about 'needing' their cars.
Suffering is not having sufficient food to eat, basic health care, treatment for serious illnesses, inadequate housing, stuff like that.
Having to pay more for the privilege of driving a car is far, far from 'suffering'.
So shut up whinging will yer??!?!
Oh god, it's getting worse. I also agree with elf.
It's not painful, and actually quite healthy.
Once the lazy bastards who live closer to my kids school than we do stop clogging up the road with their cars every morning so we can't cycle past, then I'll know fuel has hit the right price.
aracer - MemberOh god, it's getting worse. I also agree with elf.
Medicine for mr Aracer please
Taken my pills now - that's better.
I NEED my car for my 2 mile journey to work. It's just ridiculous how much they force us to pay for these essentials - all that money I pay in road tax and fuel tax just goes on rubbish useless things like ethnic diversity officers and cycle paths. Those cyclists who don't pay road tax even refuse to use those bike paths I'm paying for and get in my way when I'm popping down the shops to buy the Sunday paper. One was really rude and only just avoided scraping the door I'd just opened the other day - I don't know why he was upset, as I'd got held up behind him all the way from the traffic lights on the previous corner, and only just managed to overtake before I stopped. Grrr!
the numbers do not lie
You really don't have a very good grasp of statistics do you. 😉
Numbers can be manipulated to support an argument. For example you put a value of 2 Billion on the loss of 2000 lives. That equates to 1 million per life (assuming you meant 1000 million for a billion) which seems to me like a fairly arbitrary number with little or no reasoning to back it up. I'm not saying that you are wrong, just that your argument could do with a little more reaoning to back it up.
Gonfishing =-thats the recognised cost of a death - of course it is approximate and it depends exactly what you count. A million a death is conservative
A quick google
the audit commission give 8 billion for the cost of road deaths
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/feb/26/transport.world
IAM 1.8 million a death
http://motortorque.askaprice.com/news/auto-1011/39staggering39-cost-of-uk-road-deaths-revealed.asp
33 billion in total
http://www.brake.org.uk/government-must-act-to-tackle-preventable-road-deaths-and-injuries-which-cost-uk-economy-p33-billion-last-year
Of course teh whole argument is debatable - lots of estimates and what do you include on both credit and debit sides - however the old canard that motorists pay more than they get needs to be refuted and this is a part of that refutation. Teh motorist certainly doesnot contribute meaningfully to the exchequer after costs and as I said if you include capital costs such as land usage then its seriously in deficit.
Trains.....WTF?!
I drive a car, but really wanted to get the train to Fort William instead of using the car...........200 quid......for each of us.....400 quid in total.....
I could hire a car, pay for the fuel and drive there without having to carry all my gear....and have some money left over to eat a packet of crisps at the end of the road !!!
I live in a rural area.....public transport.....never heard of it...
😉
Hmm If they want to really get a message across, they should have done a go slow in London, Manchester, Bristol, Birmingham simultaneously on a weekday.... around about hmmm? 7-10am?
I agree tho, my cars are getting smaller and so are the engines.... because of fuelling
Good thread, just read it all the through....keep it up...
I think car ownership has got cheaper (cheaper and more reliable cars) but then counteracted by increases in insurance and fuel. I don't agree that personal cars are solely luxury - I think they have become an integral part of our economic and social infrastructure.
Those of you who live in towns and cities probably feel car dependency less than those of us who don't. For you, distances to amenities are fairly short, you have pavements, street lights, there are railways, and you see lots of buses every day. We don't have those luxuries.
Personally, some things would be OK - home delivery would replace the shop run. I'd have to give up a lot of MTB and switch to road cycling because I'm not free for long enough to cycle to the best local trails.
But I could not do my work without a car to get to meetings/airport - although anything that justifies more home working would reduce car-use, not pointlessly trundling every day to the office (good).
I could not get my partner to the nearest hospital in Taunton for her morning appointments - it's 35 miles / 1:15 drive away and she can't walk much - she certainly could not walk 2.5 miles to the bus station.
I think, without cars, rural areas would empty and the communities die as people migrated to large towns and cities, overcrowding them even more. Perhaps town dwellers would prefer that.
TJ - You complain that motoring is subsidised by the tax payer, could you give me an example of something that tax revenue is spent on that is not subsidised by the tax payer? I doubt you could.
Should we get rid of all these services as well? That would include your public transport which other tax payers (including car drivers) currently subsidise.
Zt the end of the day we have allowed our environment to become car focused. We no longer consider going to the local shop to do the shop. People may complain about tesco but I see no evidence of an active boycott. Cars are cheap, fuel is cheap by historic prices, but we are now far more affected than in years gone by. The idea of driving 50 miles to work is if you sit down and actually think about is obscene.
How much time and money does that really cost? What is the real impact of such a life on family and friends, how many people now know who there neighbours are?
yes the car has brought benefits but there have been costs.Io
its true you wonder how many journeys on roads are people just going in opposite directions to do similiar jobs. we do worship the car and anything even remotely designed to reduce usage /promote alternatives is percieved by the majority of car owners as some sort of attack on their personal freeedom and libert akin to imprisonment.
We need some more joine dup thinking to encourage folk to work nearer to home and to reduce the need to commute.
Thick selfish bastards can protest about whatever they want. I think they can't see the big picture. You'll know when fuel is expensive enough when people stop driving at ninety on the motorway.
I NEED my car for my 2 mile journey to work.
How can you afford the fuel for those whole two miles?!
Raising fuel prices is THE mechanism to evolve society towards less fossil fuel dependence. If you think the alternative transport solutions come first you're probably wrong headed. Everything in modern society is levered by money. I have a 35mpg estate and I would like petrol to double in cost. My wife uses the car daily for work, no option. I am a realist.
phil w - the point is that car drivers bleat on about how expensive fuel is and how not enough gets spent on the roads yet they are taxed to the hilt. I just point out that actually motoring is subsidised once you take into account all the cost.
I make no value judgement on whether this is right or not, just point it out
Junkyard - we have a ridiculous situation if Fife - no doubt replicated all over. The people who work in the fishing villages cannot afford to live their as commuters price them out of the market so they live in the towns and commute to the villages, the people who work in the towns commute from these villages. a two way commute! plainly ridiculous
I think, without cars, rural areas would empty and the communities die as people migrated to large towns and cities, overcrowding them even more. Perhaps town dwellers would prefer that.
It needs a generation to change However rural workers would be able to afford to live in the villages again, rural shops would become more viable, better public transport would become more viable
rural shops would become more viable
How will the goods be delivered to this vision of an idyllic rural utopia TJ?
In the cotswold you have the situation where housing is fast beyond the affordability of local workersforcing locals to commute. You then have london commuters, day commuting and living in the cotswolds. Such a life style only works because fuel is relatively cheap. What happens when carers are unable to get to work? What happens when farm labourers are unable to get to work?
we are in a mess and it will take a while to get out of but we don't really have much choice, medium term things won't get better.
binners - Memberrural shops would become more viable
How will the goods be delivered to this vision of an idyllic rural utopia TJ?
As they are now. 🙄
Momo- same as in Fife - it will be replicated the country over I guess
I don't understand the deaths cost money argument. The planet is overpopulated and thus the more deaths caused by cars, the lower their impact upon global resources.
I think, without cars, rural areas would empty and the communities die as people migrated to large towns and cities
They survived and thrived without cars before I am not sure why they would die now as TJ says peole employed locally woud live there rather than wealthy commuters
As they are now
Phew. That means i can still get my Kenyan asparagus and Yemani Passionfruits helicoptered in to my sprawling country estate. And the cats get frightfully temperamental if the Spanish Sardine's they so much prefer weren't landed fresh that very morning
chiefgrooveguru
Deaths cost money in two ways - thedirect costs such as the emergancy services, any healthcare before they die, police time investigating, inquests, PMs etc
The other is in lost wealth creation - a person of working age dying is loss to the economy as they are no longer productive and creating wealth Of course if they are dole scum or wrinklies then they don't count
But on those grounds the car is a linchpin of the capitalist wealth creation model as it helps drive consumption and without sufficient consumption productivity is devalued and thus without worth.
How can a model based on infinite growth work in a finite world.
How can a model based on infinite growth work in a finite world.
It works perfectly, right up to the point that it doesn't.
And at the point it no longer works what then?
The system has worked for the last hundred years using cheap energy, with the removal of cheap energy what happens
mrmo - if I knew the answers to questions like that, I doubt I'd be sat reading and contributing to this twoddle 😉
It isn't just cheap energy it's abundant and easily accessible raw materials...
How can a model based on infinite growth work in a finite world.
You've just identified the fundamental problem with capitalism (a system where the economy is in recession if it isn't growing). We're all in a giant Ponzi scheme.
Trains.....WTF?!
I drive a car, but really wanted to get the train to Fort William instead of using the car...........200 quid......for each of us.....400 quid in total.....
I could hire a car, pay for the fuel and drive there without having to carry all my gear....and have some money left over to eat a packet of crisps at the end of the road !!!
I live in a rural area.....public transport.....never heard of it...
I live rurally, work in a town 15 odd miles away. 0 public transport. I can and do cycle a bit but sometimes, to be brutally honest usually when it's lashing down, I just can't be arsed.
The fact is that the cost of motoring is a tax I pay (not willingly, but find one I enjoy paying eh?) for my family to live where we want to. The car is a necessity for most rural life these days, but then you have to accept you have to pay for it. Realistically though most of the city commuters round here don't even notice a 30p/L rise in fuel, whilst the older residents, who still need to drive as there are no shops for at least 6 miles, get really stung by it.
My main objection is the funds from it tend to go to the current governments latest vanity project rather than nationalising and subsidising public transport to a point we can all see a payback.
That reverse commuting point though is very interesting. Not noticed it so much but then everyone here is (relatively) well off, and the agricultural labour is either contract (so not local) or still in the few tied houses.
PS - double whammy for a lot of rural residents is that oil heating is common. It doesn't get affected nearly as much, but it is certainly still noticeable.
Brassneck, don't take this the wrong way. You have made a choice about where you live I assume and with that choice are certain costs. Those choices were never there for our grandparents, and there parents.my x suspicion is that is the world we may be returning to. One where you live and work reasonably close together.
Junkyard - we have a ridiculous situation if Fife - no doubt replicated all over. The people who work in the fishing villages cannot afford to live their as commuters price them out of the market so they live in the towns and commute to the villages, the people who work in the towns commute from these villages. a two way commute! plainly ridiculous
Happens everywhere - ridiculous state of affairs.
"However rural workers would be able to afford to live in the villages again"
Actually there are very few rural workers. It's all been increasingly mechanised over the centuries until today, a family farm is run by a family with little extra help. That's why rural tenants migrated to cities in the first place. Without incomers/commuters, these villages would have gone. I will, however, help you lead a charge against 2nd home owners 🙂
It's true that rural communities used to function without cars - living standards, life expectancy and quality of life were much lower then too. Rural idylls of that nature are an oxymoron.
The strength of our economy today really depends on flexible workforces that can be made redundant one week and pick up another job the next by being mobile - and usually that means everyone commutes by car.
I don't know the answer, but I know it isn't: "you are evil because you drive". I smell sanctimonium 😀
Fuel has gone up. Most other costs of motoring have gone down. Cars are more economical than they used to be.
Motoring's still cheap, I reckon. And if you're finding the commute to work a bit pricey, move closer. You can cycle then.