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

what are costs of illness created by cars?

Good question, and I suggest it is very hard to quantify. Particularly if the prevalance of cheap private motor transport has contributed to the sedentary society and the rise in obesity. If it has we can't really say until we realise the full cost of dealing with the associated illnesses.

Also, I suppose respiratory illnesses would also fall into a similar category and probably cancer too. They're all quite long term and calculating the costs at a population level is very difficult.

Edite to add - D'oh beaten to it by TJ!

philw - maybe -maybe other ways but yes money would need to be pumped in no doubt - and taxing the car driver gives you the money to do it

Would the knock on effect not be increased prices of all goods. As the transportation costs would go up and this would be passed on to the consumer.

And remember this was above inflation fuel cost increase therefore the cost of goods would also be rising at or above the rate of inflation.

Would this not lead to the creating of a new (and large) poorer class. While the rich would not feel the effects in the same way?

If anyone is interested, fuel duties brought £26.2bn into the Treasure in 09/10. That is more than council tax and business rates (£25bn and £23.4bn respectively).

"revenue raised from railways is much lower than its share"
just a thought but if railways hadn't been privatised would this still be the case?

We pay a whole lot more now it's privatised than under BR.

It's amazing the breadth of knowledge some people have. Certainty. Any subject.

i find it remarkable that people are arguing that increased fuel duty will kill rural economies. tell that to those villages in devon and cornwall whose schools and shops have closed down because 80% of the houses are holiday homes occupied for only a few weeks of the year by folk from 'that london', owners of which arrive with their cars laden with waitrose shopping.

the thing is, that many people [i]choose[/i] to live more than 10miles away from their work. they don't have to, they [i]choose[/i] to, because they can easily do that distance in 10 or 15mins in the car.
the majority of fit and healthy people could live within 3 or 4 miles of work and walk there and back every day if they chose to, but don't see that as viable. jump on a bike at that point you've barely got warm when you get in.

look at how much money is spent on fuel that could be put towards mortgage payments too.

as Petepoddy and TJ ( i feel feint ) have both said to some extent, free and easy transport has led to more people travelling further to work because they [i]can[/i]. is that how you want to spend your time? for a few reasons i used to do it - 45mins each way. making the necessary arrangements to stop doing that gave me a massive amount of additional time each day to myself, never mind the money i saved on fuel.

can't believe nobody has even brought up the issue of car-sharing yet...

Surely the 'first' change we will begin to notice as the costs of fuel increase is more people sharing journeys?

Massive savings to be made just getting people to use the extra seats in their cars, savings in space on the roads, savings on costs for the driver/owner and the passengers.

People will cling to their cars as long as they can, but obviously it will be a gradual change, with some getting rid sooner, and I reckon that will be the first noticeable thing, seeing more people in each car and the costs being shared among co-workers and friends more, not just for commuting but private use too.

tell that to those villages in devon and cornwall whose schools and shops have closed down because 80% of the houses are holiday homes occupied for only a few weeks of the year by folk from 'that london'

Most of the towns round by me are not like that.

Amedias - funny you should say that. People park on our roads to car-share. The parking situation has got loads worse lately.

Villages are maybe a bit more likely to suffer though molgrips.

Suffer from what? Holiday home ownership?

Villages are maybe a bit more likely to suffer though molgrips.

Suffer from what? Holiday home ownership?

Many villages and small town communities have been lost to the car for years, without the additional issue of holiday home ownership.

The real issue is that currently, nobody needs to do anything on their doorstep.

Nobody uses the village shop because in 15 minutes you can drive to an aircraft-hanger sized supermarket with acres of free parking, bargain prices and vast, vast choice of produce from all over the world. So the local store, 5 minutes walk down the road has become an unappealing option, and it has closed down.

People don't need to join in with the community they live amongst, because another 15 minute drive takes you across town to where your friend lives. So you don't meet your mates down at the local for an evening out, because you don't have local mates. They're scattered everywhere, so you all meet in the city centre where it's most convenient for everyone. So the local pub closes down.

We don't need to live near our families, because they're all only 15 minutes away by car.

People don't work where they live. The car has allowed for us to travel to find work. Though commute [i]times[/i] historically haven't changed much from what I've read, the ever increasing speed of modern personal transport has ensured [i]distances[/i] have. So the half hour commute that got the worker of yesterday to his job a few miles away by foot gets the worker of today 30 miles down a motorway. So our work colleagues are scattered all over, again widening the distance over which our social circle is spread.

We have the situation where kids can't afford to live in the village where they grew up as it's been bought out by people who don't work, socialise or shop there. There's more to living in a community than occupying a house in it, but that's what's happening now. People haven't got any interest in their surroundings. Not because they're ignorant or unpleasant, but because they've no need to.

A good friend of mine comes from rural Oxfordshire, where her parents still live. She's only in her mid 30s, but often returns from visiting her folks saying how the village has changed. How you never see anyone to chat to anymore because there's nobody around. How nobody knows their neighbours and how the once open gardens her friends played in have been fenced off behind electric gates beloved of rich city types who've moved to the country to escape 'people'.

When we're all driving everywhere from our front door, we need never take a single step out into the community in which we live. Our knowledge of community is just a village green or some hanging baskets we see flash by through the window of our car.

I myself live in a small semi-rural village on the outskirts of a major city. I moved here because my car made it viable.

Early this year, due to the rising costs, I decided to go car-free for the first time since I was 17. Even though I've been a cycle commuter for years, happy to leave the car on the drive most of its life, actually being car free was still a bit of a shock to the system.

Having lived here for nearly a decade, only now do I notice the lack of a local shop selling anything beyond Happy Shopper white bread, tinned spaghetti hoops and Jammy Dodgers. If I want to be able to cook a decent meal and stay ahead in the never ending battle against scurvy I need to travel further than I realistically can on foot.

Only now have I realised how hard it is to have a social life within walking distance, with the couple of remaining pubs struggling to keep their doors open as nobody goes in them anymore. I notice how pedestrian unfriendly a place it is, despite being a settlement that predates the car by centuries, with the roads having been widened to accommodate heavy through-traffic, making the crossing from one narrow pavement to the other scary at best, impossible at worst.

The public transport here isn't as bad as it could be, I discovered, once I looked for the bus stops I'd never noticed before and got my car addled head around the patchy timetables I swiftly had to teach myself how to read having never needed to look at one in my life.

Luckily I now work from home, so a commute isn't on the agenda for me. But I'm still glad of the bus sometimes as cycling or walking along the only road serving my area isn't too much fun, being a 60mph racetrack with one narrow pavement, mostly carrying traffic that's just passing through and has no interest or even acknowledgement of the community through which it travels daily.

I see parts of my surroundings now that I'd never noticed before. I now feel like I actually want, no, need to 'live' where I live - not just sleep, bathe and check my emails of an evening. But it's really hard as the facilities just aren't there right now. My friends and family are still scattered all over the place. My various clients, when I do need to visit them, are now a bus and train ride away, while potential clients near my home could well be accepting the services of people that have driven from right where my train's headed.

Only now have I realised just how far away I actually live from my daily life, and just how ridiculous and unsustainable that actually is.

I don't want to sound like some lefty, rose-tinted arse harping on about the days when everybody knew Alfred the friendly local shop keep, our door locks were made out of mulled vinegar and the only entertainment we all needed was a yearly dance around the maypole and a high-spirited jig in the church hall.

I just found that the day I got rid of my car, living where I do instantly became a whole lot less viable. And it made me realise that if the time does come where more people are forced to start getting rid of their cars, there really is going to be massive, massive social change right across our little island. Some changes will be very bad and we will hate them, and some will be a great deal better. But they will happen, because right now, what we're doing, the life we've all bought into and will defend to the death as our god given right and the only true way of life is absolutely, utterly batshit mental.

Best post in ages....

(Good post, Jackthedog...)

One partial solution, at least in the short term, would be to use GPS technology to charge drivers for the mileage they do. (Fuel duty could then be scrapped.) Charges could be adjusted according to journey, eg short city drive (where viable cycleways/public transport alternatives exist) = big bucks, rural trip into town = fewer bucks. The only potential downside I can see is the civil liberties angle, but careful regulation should sort that...

methinks its about right (the duty level that is)

but gotta laugh at the smug who think just because they don't run a car they are not effected - rising duty impacts on all, everthing we regularly consume is transported by car, van, lorry, plane, ferry and train

you want something, you contribute

or we try out this lifestyle
[img] [/img]

but as they say, necessity is the mother of invention

but gotta laugh at the smug who think just because they don't run a car they are not effected - rising duty impacts on all, everthing we regularly consume is transported by car, van, lorry, plane, ferry and train

At the same time, how many of us want to be back in the era where our job was decided mainly by where we grew up? having to choose between job and family for example?

the additional "freedom" goven my private motoring has made some fairly deep seated changes in society, that I don't think many of us want to lose.

But you are missing the point. TJ is planning a totalitarian utopia where you will do as you are bloody well told! Freedom of choice will not be an option.

coyote

Nope - its you that miss the point.

Private motoring will end soon. there is no more cheap energy. petrol will only keep going up and soon rapidly.

We have a choice -= we either anticipate this and get the adaptations to society done in plenty of time and with plenty of money - or we find ourselves reactiong to circumstances and that would cause great dislocation as we will not have the money to ease the transition

Private cars will be rare again in 25 years. simply too expensive for most people

THERE IS NO MORE CHEAP ENERGY!

Jackthedog - nice post.

.

...it made me realise that if the time does come where more people are forced to start getting rid of their cars, there really is going to be massive, massive social change right across our little island. Some changes will be very bad and we will hate them, and some will be a great deal better. But they will happen, because right now, what we're doing, the life we've all bought into and will defend to the death as our god given right and the only true way of life is absolutely, utterly batshit mental.

and soon there will not be the cheap energy to support it.

That is a fantastic post jtd, really does hit the spot on some key issues. I'm lucky enough to live in a small town that does have some facilities left and try hard to use them. There clearly are massive positives to the car culture but it's important to see the negatives too. I'd agree that the price of fuel is ok for now and like the idea of taxation based on usage patterns. Suspect that's a long way off and a bit of a minefield though.

At the risk of typing something stupid or irrelevant, applying I struggle with long sentences:

Tax burden at the moment needs moved onto hydrocarbons, and probably bankers (for want of a more eloquent explanation/phrase).

Same backpedaling, different day. I type as a car owner. Wont win my vote. Lazy fat bastards driving everywhere, that's my personal bug bear.

The way i look at this, if we were all to start driving electric cars tomorrow, the tax on electricity or Vat or something would go up.

Car related taxes bring in a lot of money, the government won't give them up with out putting the tax elsewhere.

As for cars, we have moved to a situation where travelling to work is normal, where local facilities no longer exist, where public transport is largely in effective. Going to a post car situation is going to hurt a lot of people.

mrmo - which is why I argue for starting the move towards the post car society now when we can make choices adn be gradual and afford to cross subsidise.

Electric cars will never be able to do what petrol ones do - simply not enough energy storage.

Private motoring will end soon. there is no more cheap energy. petrol will only keep going up and soon rapidly.

And the economy will grind to a halt. The current model is based on a mobile, flexible workforce. Take all the cars off the road, what happens to the car factories? They close. The motor factors? They close. Kwik Fit, ATS etc? They close. The small suppliers providing bling to impressionable young drivers? They close. Petrol stations who provide so much to the exchequer in tax? They close.

So we have a few people out of work there and a bit of tax not being generated. We also remove *choice* from peoples lives. "Fancy an impromptu visit to <insert random seldomly visited relative>?"

Our political views are probably not that far apart. However you have a very blinkered view on what YOU think is right and wrong and will not see that others have a valid point. I agree that fossil fuels have a limited life, however taxing the individuals "freedom to travel" to death is not the answer. Public transport is part of the answer. Alternative fuels are another.

Electric cars will never be able to do what petrol ones do - simply not enough energy storage.

Look at the developments in technology where there is a demand. I have spent the best part of 30 years working in IT (yeah, I know) and have seen amazing advances. Why? Because there is a demand and the will to supply it. In terms of motoring, there is not the will to provide an alternative? Why? Because the status quo generates a shit load of tax.

On previous threads it has been pointed out that the situation is not irreversible though. I think local government needs to invest in public transport but those funds will need to come from somewhere. If you can use a financial stick to beat people onto pt and use the cash to make pt viable that is a way forward IMO.

Look at the developments in technology where there is a demand. I have spent the best part of 30 years working in IT (yeah, I know) and have seen amazing advances. Why? Because there is a demand and the will to supply it. In terms of motoring, there is not the will to provide an alternative? Why? Because the status quo generates a shit load of tax.

Battery Technology is the problem, petrol and diesel are very efficient ways of storing energy, Li-Ion cells aren't. While a electric motor will get a car from a to b perfectly well the question is how to provide energy to that motor? I should also point out the problem with rare earth metals and obtaining enough to manufacture enough batteries.

We've spent the last 50 or 60 years setting everything up to revolve around cars, and we can't just pull the rug out now. It's all very well saying people shouldn't live 50 miles from where they work (although I often do!) but rightly or wrongly people do, and it's all bound up with all sorts of other things like home ownership aspirations and the lifestyle priorities people have.
But I do think it's little short of a tragedy how much everything has been given over to the car and what it's done to us and our environment. Sure it's improved our quality of life in some ways but in others it's been very detrimental and I'd like to see that recognised more.
For the role of the car to change though lots of other things have got to change too and it's a massive ask. I think it's telling that bikebuoy and others talk about people's rights being somehow curtailed if they can't drive when or where they like, but I reckon people are going to have to start rethinking their expectations about lots of things over the next couple of decades, and their `rights' won't come into it.

Battery Technology is the problem, petrol and diesel are very efficient ways of storing energy, Li-Ion cells aren't. While a electric motor will get a car from a to b perfectly well the question is how to provide energy to that motor? I should also point out the problem with rare earth metals and obtaining enough to manufacture enough batteries.

Where there is a will (and a buck to be made...) there is a way. But there isn't the will.

coyote - there is plenty of will. there is no way. You cannot get anything like the energy density in batteries. Huge amounts of research going on

Battery tech is so much better than it used to be - but its still not even in the same universe as petrol

Electric cars are simply not going to replace the petrol one unless there is a major breakthrough in battery tech.

You need to take your head out of the sand. the days of cheap energy are over. even electric will go up and there is no alternative fuel possible that can provide the amopunt of energy needed.

it took 50 years to get here - I think we could change it in 25 to end our dependence on the car.

I think there has been a small but noticeable shift already, the greatest of which (as Ianmunro pointed out) is the internet which enables more and more people to work from home at least some of the time. Shopping via the internet is another.

A small Tesco has also opened in the village next to mine and is open until 11pm which means I can get groceries enroute home instead of an 8 mile trip to the shopping centre. They have obviously done their homework and realised that a smaller local version will be profitable now and presumably even more so in the future.

I really can't see many people giving up their car in the short to medium term and with advances in technology via solar panels, electric cars will become much more prevalent. As JTD pointed out, we have expanded our 'living circle' in line with the ability to travel relatively cheaply and quickly and contrary to what TJ is saying, that energy via the sun is not about to go for some time, we just need to harness it a bit more efficiently.

There has been too radical a shift in population distribution and the way society works in general to return to non-reliance on the car. It is just not going to happen.

woody - how?

Please tell the world this amazing new form of energy storage that you know about that no one else does?

there has been serious and significant research on this for decades and non one has come up with anything that even looks hopeful.

I am really interested in alternative energy and there is not even a hopeful line of research that I know of.

Biofuels - simply not enough crop growing land, electricity - storage is so poor and yo still need to make it somehow, hydrogen - storage and manufacture too difficult.

so please - all you people that think we can carry on as we are using huge amounts of energy to move people round in a very inefficient manner can you please tell me how you are going to provide the energy?

I am really interested in alternative energy and there is not even a hopeful line of research that I know of.

Maybe the science world hasn't seen fit to inform you yet TJ
[img] [/img]

I am really interested in alternative energy and there is not even a hopeful line of research that I know of.

Of course you are not privy to the R&D departments of major corporations. Just because it's not on Google doesn't mean it's not being worked on.

Biofuels - simply not enough crop growing land

Agreed, total non-starter. It is not the green option it is often mooted as. Vast tracts of land would have to be turned over to the production of crops.

electricity - storage is so poor and yo still need to make it somehow, hydrogen - storage and manufacture too difficult.

It is not in the interest of govt or big business to produce either. Vast quantities of revenue for both in oil. Not so in other technologies.

so please - all you people that think we can carry on as we are using huge amounts of energy to move people round in a very inefficient manner can you please tell me how you are going to provide the energy?

Sadly, I am not clever enough to come up with that one. However I do know that battering people into submission with tax is not big and it's certainly not clever.

Please tell the world this amazing new form of energy storage that you know about that no one else does?

TJ, you are right when you say we have not seen a significant game changer in energy storage technology commercially but that doesn't mean we won't.

We have seen a progressive improvement in battery technology over the last 25 years. If anyone remembers the old 6V ever-ready Zinc style batteries and you compare them to the modern lithium-ion batteries in your iphone for example, technology has come on significantly. This can be seen in other energy storage technologies too for solar collectors etc.

Science will provide! 🙂

yes we have seen improvement in batteries. However its still not in the ballpark for an adequate car. Costs of thousands, range of a few miles,uses loads of rare materials, been researched into for decades.

Batteries don't need to double the capacity - they need to be 100 times as good. And they still need to be charged by something - all the infrastructure and energy consumption that requires

What touching faith that science will provide something - me - I'd rather be pragmatic and plan for the end of cheap energy so we are well placed and organised as this happens. The is no sign of an alternative energy source being developed

all you people that think we can carry on as we are using huge amounts of energy to move people round in a very inefficient manner can you please tell me how you are going to provide the energy?

Fusion? Granted that doesn't solve all the storage issue but it is a way of generating large amounts of energy. Not a whole solution by any means but it certainly has a part to play.

and how are we going to get that energy into the cars?

No one has made a working fusion generator yet anyway. So thats two bits of imaginary tech to be invented - the car energy storage and the electricity generator

and how are we going to get that energy into the cars?

No one has made a working fusion generator yet anyway. So thats two bits of imaginary tech to be invented - the car energy storage and the electricity generator

25 years ago no-one had DVD's... BLue rays, USB storage or only just a half decent microchip. I was selling 8mb of RAM for over £120 a time less than 20 years ago.
Now i can buy over 100 times that for the same price.

Technology will catch up... just not yet.

Batteries don't need to double the capacity - they need to be 100 times as good

100 times? What's that based on? You need to have a car that has a range of 20,000miles between charges?

Nuclear Fusion whilst not finished is not far away.

Electric cars using huge arrays of expensive batteries have a practical range of tens of miles. Certainly batteries need to be orders of magnitude more capacity to be anything like practicable.

Fusion - really. Pie in the sky.

so you think two unknown technologies will suddenly become viable in the next ten years?

UK fuel is cheaper than Italy!!!! a litre of unleaded in our village 1.63 euro. thats £1.45 a litre.

diesel is the cheapest in the supermarket at the local town for 1.42 euro £1.26 litre.

Fusion - really. Pie in the sky.

Have you actually read anything about Fusion technology at all and how far advanced it is?

The first electric cars would carry 2 peope had a range of 30-40 miles and a top speed of 40mph.

The new generation of electric cars will carry 5 people, travel at 90mph and have a range of 115miles.

Stop typing so fast and give your brain chance to catch up!

so you think two [s]un[/s]known technologies will [s]suddenly[/s] become viable in the next [s]ten[/s] 15-20 years?

Yes.

The Earth was once flat, man would never walk on the moon and the thought of splitting an Atom was witchcraft!

TJ to call fusion imaginary technology and pie in the sky is wrong and only serves to highlight your ignorance. It is already being worked on here in the UK and I'm sure at other sites. Whether it will realised within 10 years I don't know, personally I doubt that it will be on a comercial scale, but neither will oil and gas run out by then either so that's a rather pointless timescale to impose.

As for the car part well which part of

Granted that doesn't solve all the storage issue but it is a way of generating large amounts of energy.

did you not read.

LHS - what electric car does that? Even if one did you have still not solved the issue of the rare raw materials - we do not have enough to make the amount of batteries required to replace every car with an electric one nor do we have the generating capacity nor the charging infrastructure.

Fusion - its no where near ready and I don't believe it ever will be. Its apparently 25 years away and has been since I was a kid

We need solutions now. Not based on an imaginary next generation tech. We need to moving to the post car society now in a controlled and planned manner.