[Closed] Petrol Prices........

I think they're about right to be honest. Expensive enough to make people think and consider unnecessary journeys, not too expensive that its impossible to do business.

I also think they are about right and the price reflects the fact that oil is a resource that is running out. Despite what many people say we pay about the same as much of Europe and the US may pay less but that hardly appears to be helping stimulate their economy does it.
As always the real issue is not the price of petrol but they lack of viable alternatives in this country.

I think they're about right to be honest.

Not for transporting goods it's not. Along side other factors it's pushing the price of a weekly shop through the roof.

I foresee.

"It's a rip off fuel companies are making a fortune"

"It's not the fuel companies it's Cameron and his thieves."

"If you can still run your car it's too cheap"

and finally the always predictable

"Should be £5 a litre"

Thread closed due to moderator 🙁

52p out of every litre goes in oil & to the retailer the rest goes to the government & in tax*.

There's a lot the government could do.

If they want to help bring down inflation & help the economic recovery without touching interest rates they could knock say 10-15p off a litre to help bring down the cost of goods & so help stimulate the economy by giving people a bit more money in their pocket. It wouldn't solve the problem on its own but would help.

*source - BBC Breakfast.

Reduction of 30p per litre at the very least or take the cost per litre below £1.00 and keep it there regardless of oil prices/tax grabbers.

IMHO

If they want to help bring down inflation & help the economic recovery without touching interest rates they could knock say 10-15p off a litre to help bring down the cost of goods & so help stimulate the economy by giving people a bit more money in their pocket. It wouldn't solve the problem on its own but would help.

Sadly they are more likely to knock off the 50p tax than anything else (reports written by bankers will tell them it has no benefit). Petrol taxes bring too much money towards the deficit reduction for the government to remove them.

Sadly they are more likely to knock off the 50p tax than anything else (reports written by bankers will tell them it has no benefit). Petrol taxes bring too much money towards the deficit reduction for the government to remove them.

This. For those who want a reduction in fuel duty what other taxes would you raise to cover the loss of revenue on an ongoing basis?

There's a lot the government could do.

If they want to help bring down inflation & help the economic recovery without touching interest rates they could knock say 10-15p off a litre

You sure they could do that? Where'd the money come from?

so the govt knocks 10 -15p a litre off the price.. who makes up the tax deficet? shall we close all the libaries, only let firemen go out if you have house insurance? the choice is yours..

If they want to help bring down inflation & help the economic recovery without touching interest rates they could knock say 10-15p off a litre

And who would then make up the shortfall of tens of billions of pounds of tax revenue? Even the 1p cut in fuel duty cost the Treasury over a billion a year...

i've got a dose of man-flu, so i drove to work this morning.

i was the only, and i do mean [u]only[/u] person obeying the 50mph speed limit on the dual-carriageway*.

everyone else was just burning fuel for fun, they all think it's cheap enough.

(*it's a horrible bit of road; lots of junctions, etc. it's 50 for a reason)

Thats Ok by me.

Next.

i was the only, and i do mean only person obeying the 50mph speed limit on the dual-carriageway.

My hero.

your point is?

In the future, everyone will walk or cycle to work, apart from football players and bankers, who will ride a horse from their extensive grounds.

Goods will be transported around the country using a network of canals. This will have been massively extended by drafting the nation's prisoners into canal construction. There will be a few problems with runaways of course, but mountain bikers will be paid big rewards for each escapee brought back to the canals (dead or alive).

Most of the Highlands of Scotland will become completely inaccessible, except for those prepared to put up with long midge-filled treks on foot or fatbike along crumbling abandoned roads, and will become de-facto independent. The few remaining isolated settlements will slowly shrink and become ever more insular.

We will no longer be able to afford an air force based around fighter jets. Instead, we shall attack foreign nations (on a regular basis) with a fleet of military hot air balloons. Our brave lads will float gracefully over enemy territories and toss bombs over the side of the baskets onto the warring forces below.

Alternatively, we'll get loads of fuel by fracking, and petrol will be cheap, and so will houses in those areas.

I can remember when four star was about 47p a gallon

How would they reconcile a fuel duty drop with the claim of being "the greenest government ever"?

( 😆 )

I foresee.

"It's a rip off fuel companies are making a fortune"

"It's not the fuel companies it's Cameron and his thieves."

"If you can still run your car it's too cheap"

and finally the always predictable

"Should be £5 a litre"

very clever - but what's YOUR opinion?

(it seems pricey to me, but most people crack on regardless. taxes have to come from somewhere, and fuel-duty seems as sensible/daft a way to do it as any)

your point is?

No point at all.

I think they're about right to be honest. Expensive enough to make people think and consider unnecessary journeys, not too expensive that its impossible to do business.

I pretty much agree with the above.

People should stop being so lazy and walk places a bit more.

BBC News this morning talking to Mum's on the school run - some of the poor unfortunate souls have now been reduced to using their legs to get there (1, 2, 3, ahhhhhh) ... well, boo hoo ... 🙄

My neighbour drives his kids to school in a big 4WD truck thing. My son goes to the same school. We walk him. It's 10 minutes.

Rising petrol prices have at least caused the population to actually reconsider their dependency on a car.

May cause pain in the short term but over time I believe (hope) it will be beneficial.

I can remember when four star was about 47p a gallon

Were you filling up your Model T Ford at the time? 😉

Lets reduce prices loads. Then we can behave like Americans in the 90's. We can all buy trucks with 7 litre engines. Or Hummers. And then lose the use of our legs and build everything as drive-thru's. And all become morbidly obese weebles incapable of walking to the end of the road.

Have you noticed the people complaining on telly about fuel prices are all, without exception, right fat bastards?

Rising petrol prices have at least caused the population to actually reconsider their dependency on a car.

May cause pain in the short term but over time I believe (hope) it will be beneficial.

Unfortunately you cant walk lorry loads of goods to the shops, kids are much easier.

But ultimately we'll have to re-think economic models, supply chains etc. surely? And not before time IMHO

High fuel prices are fine if you live in an environment that can cope with mass human movement, but out in Ruralshire it's a different matter alltogether. I think some of you need to understand that before proclaiming "saving the environment" is the prime motivator for high tax "ripoffidge"..
Genuinely there are folks out there that can not move around due to high fuel costs and no public transport infrastructure.

We have for too long been influenced by doom laiden'ists proclaiming the only way to cut greenhouse gasses and other particulates is to force people off the roads.
It isn't, it's not a solution, it limiting and just another way to contain and repress a basic human need and that is freedom to move.

IMHO

Next.

it's a shame there is no public transport option for so many people, forcing them into cars.

buses in my area are being cut back and cut back. It would be a journey of 2 buses and a 1.5 mile walk to get to work at a cost of £6.50 a day (£25/week for a travel card). taking the best part of 1.5 hours to do a 5 mile journey.

Oil is running out, that's an inescapable fact whether we like it or not. I'd love to be able to afford to run a 2.5 litre V6, but it wouldn't easily sit with me now regardless of whether I had a big enough pot of money or not.

I would be happier if this (and previous) governments had diverted a larger pot of fuel duty revenue into public transport. The "Green" claims have all been very hollow when you figure that a lot has been done to keep people [i]in[/i] their cars and feeding the treasury.

We're at a very dangerous juncture when the government is as addicted to the duties from fuel as the British public is to fossil fuel powered personal transport.

cost of fuel has a negligable impact on the weekly shop. Average food journey is approx 400 miles. Average lorry carries 40 tonnes of food, and does 10mpg. take the round trip into account and its 80 gallons - so around £500 for 40 tonnes of food.

lets say a normal weekly shop is approx 20kg of goods. the cost of fuel on your weekly shop is 25p.

if fuel prices go up by half, you'll pay an extra 12p on a weekly shop

Unfortunately you cant walk lorry loads of goods to the shops, kids are much easier.

Hah. True. I wrote my comment on the assumption people would have enough available IQ to realise I wasn't referring to haulage and what-not.

it limiting and just another way to contain and repress a basic human need and that is freedom to move.

Just slight hyperbole there.

I don't necessarily disagree with an increase in fuel prices. I think in the long term we need to be weaned off our dependence on the car.
But, I don't think that the government is doing enough in parallel to improve public transport.
I live in a not insubstantial town where the local population numbers about 13000 but the bus service is dismal. They have recently cut one of the routes that wound its way around the more outlying areas before heading into the glorious city of Peterborough.
If you want to get a bus into Peterborough for a night out, then you can get a bus there, but the last bus back is at about 8pm. So you have no option but to get a taxi. I am sure there must be enough people to lay on one bus that leaves a bit later.

I have looked several times at commuting by public transport instead of my car and it is not feasible. It is possible to do so, but would more than double my commute time.

another way to contain and repress a basic human need and that is freedom to move.

along with

'Political Correctness' - a way to control what we say and think

'Health & Safety' - (when wrongly applied) a subtle mechanism to control our actions and movements

Maybe. If you're paranoid. 🙂

...Genuinely there are folks out there (in rural land) that can not move around due to high fuel costs and no public transport infrastructure...

this is of course, not good.

but, we've seen this situation developing for what? - 40 years? - it's not as if anyone can claim to be surprised. That they've not had time to adapt.

my parents chose to live 10 miles from a lovely little market town, which has everything they could ever need within walking distance. with regular train / bus services to and from York/scarborough/leeds/etc.

they chose not to live IN the town.

they complain about the price of fuel - they spend an awful lot of time/money driving to and from that lovely little town.

i think my parents are a bit daft.

From the article - [i]"for the average motorist the planned increase would equate to an additional £38 a year at the pumps."[/i]

So we're talking 73p a week. So basically every 4 weeks you spend the equivalent of a pint of beer extra. It hardly seems like the biggest hardship.

Yeah... but they keep putting up the duty on beer too. So if you're a drink-driver then you're being punished unfairly.

Fat, drunk people with accident-damaged vehicles won't take much more of this

My neighbour drives his kids to school in a big 4WD truck thing. My son goes to the same school. We walk him. It's 10 minutes.

Unfortunately you cant walk lorry loads of goods to the shops

So we're talking 73p a week. So basically every 4 weeks you spend the equivalent of a pint of beer extra. It hardly seems like the biggest hardship.

Hello perspective, how are you?

The planned rise will cost me £79/year approximately (worked out from the calculation I just did on the 'how much do you spend on fuel' thread.

When I bought my car 5 years ago fuel was ~£0.90/litre. The increase in fuel costs since means I am spending £1215/year more than I would have done when I bought it on fuel!

ahwiles - Member
i've got a dose of man-flu, so i drove to work this morning.

i was the only, and i do mean only person obeying the 50mph speed limit on the dual-carriageway*.

everyone else was just burning fuel for fun, they all think it's cheap enough.

but, we've seen this situation developing for what? - 40 years? - it's not as if anyone can claim to be surprised. That they've not had time to adapt.

What happens if you buy a house in a nice village which has everything you need and a regular bus service to the nearest town, but the village shops go out of business because Tesco built a superstore ten miles away, and the local council cuts the subsidy to the local bus company so they stop the service?

There are factors operating at scales beyond the control of individuals which mean adapting is not possible.

BBC News this morning talking to Mum's on the school run - some of the poor unfortunate souls have now been reduced to using their legs to get there (1, 2, 3, ahhhhhh) ... well, boo hoo ...

My neighbour drives his kids to school in a big 4WD truck thing. My son goes to the same school. We walk him. It's 10 minutes.

As usual - a puerile and completely fatuous argument...

At what age would you suggests kids walk to school (accompanied and unaccompanied)?

[b]11?[/b] - my son has just started "big school" - we believe that he is now old enough to walk to the bus stop on his own. But the law says (admittedly not clear cut) that if we leave an under 14 in the house alone we may get prosecuted...

[b]10?[/b] - daughter is almost 10, primary school kids. I really don't feel that she is old enough to / from walk to school unaccompanied, especially in the dark months of the year

[b]3?[/b] - the age kids start school around here

Walking primary and younger kids to / from school is utterly dependent on going back to the old days of one parent working / one parent staying at home.... so feasible for those who are very well off - or on benefits.

What happens if you buy a house in a nice village which has everything you need and a regular bus service to the nearest town, but the village shops go out of business because Tesco built a superstore ten miles away, and the local council cuts the subsidy to the local bus company so they stop the service?

You use Tesco home delivery.
😀

ahwiles - Member
i've got a dose of man-flu, so i drove to work this morning.

i was the only, and i do mean only person obeying the 50mph speed limit on the dual-carriageway*.

everyone else was just burning fuel for fun, they all think it's cheap enough.

Except that doesn't really work.
In my own car for example, 50 mph = 42 mpg. 70 mph = 40 mpg. Fuel would need to be massively higher priced to make that difference worthwhile.