[Closed] Petrol Prices

TJ - I do agree with you about public transport. The buses I use are great! They get into town quickly, they're modern and clean and cheap. No way could I drive for less than £10 per week. The parking would cost nearly that per day!

I think a monthly ticket is £32!!! That's fantastic value for money! And there's one every 10 minutes. Cant knock that.

However, it's only because it's the city centre. All my other jobs I had public transport was not an option. Again, down to government not investing in a good public transport network etc...

but you didn't want to hear so you didn't listen.

THAT ATTITUDE IS GETTING REALLY FRIGGING OLD!

molgrips, it's a 1.9 TDi Ibiza 130 sport. I average around 55mpg in it and I have a geek spreadsheet that confirms this along with a graph to track the price of fuel.

TJ, do I really get 55mpg? No, sometimes it's higher. Not sure how well this image will come out, but 63.8 mpg on the way home tonight. That's sticking to 60mph while negotiating short stretches or road with frequent roundabouts, then up to 70 once clear of them. Also included about a 10 min queue at black cat roundabout on A1.

[IMG] [/IMG]

As for extra costs when things go wrong - yeah true, but the only things that have gone wrong so far are 1 wheel bearing @ 38k miles (£120) and a failed boost pipe (£45) both fitted. Even my front discs AND pads lasted 119k miles...

EDIT: should also confirm that image is total for that journey, not just instantaneous.

Ta stumpy

I take it you'll be on trains & buses up to Strathpeffer this weekend TJ?

Not going uplink - although I did look at the train option. Its not bad actually

As I have repeatedly said I use taxis and hire cars when public transport will not do for me.

I wouldn't fancy coming back from up there on a Sunday evening

I tried some months ago to get back to Durham from Inverness on a Sunday afternoon
Got back as far as Edinburgh & then was left with an overnight wait to complete the journey
I think it took around 16 hrs in all

I love my car, every time I see it I smile. I wanted one for years and finally got one. How much is that worth per mile? Public transport is horrible. It's expensive, at best inconvenient and deeply unpleasant.

Agreed on all counts.

Rubbish - I use it - modern vehicles clean and tidy, convenient and easy - while being cheaper than a car. When did you last use it?

TJ, I used it this morning, as I do every weekday.

I take the train to Central London, and get a seat precisely none of the time. If I were to then take the Tube across London (I don't, I cycle), I'd never get a seat, I'd be herded in like cattle, and it would be a slow, bumpy, smelly affair, with stupid levels of both heat and humidity. It really is deeply unpleasant.

But for 5 days of 7 I'm a good little greenie. At the weekend, however, I either cycle or drive. And I'll not apologise for driving my car when I want to, nor for my choice of a car, come to that. It's very large, it's a 4x4, and I get 30mpg at best. I'm sure you'd hate it. I could drive something else, but I don't want to.

As you've said, it's all about choices. I choose to work in an insanely difficult environment because I like the challenge and because, bluntly, I get paid very well to do so. With that choice made, don't you think that in return I'm allowed the choice of what car I drive?

I agree with zedsdead about business parks. Offices all over the place rather than in once central place make arranging public transport very difficult as for many it means a bus into town to get a bus out of town again.

FFS TJ,

You can't extrapolate the public transport system of an affluent little city out to the rest of the country.

nickf - of course you can make that choice

What I want is for folk to be clear it is a choice not a necessity and that the car drivers pay their fair share.

Basically stop bleating about the cost. Its as cheap as it ever has been if not cheaper compared to earnings. If you don't like the cost then don't do it - simple as

Beans you forget, TJ lives in his own happy little faux-Scotchish utopia where all is well.

Dangerousbeans - the point is that being dirty expensive and inefficient is not an inherent characteristic of public transport - it does not have to be like that.

Teh pure snobbery of some folk is laughable -= they don't want to go on public transport 'cos of having to rub shoulders with the public

I know it doesn't have to be but quite often it is.

Some of our buses are old, very old.... as in there's quite a few K reg ones about and you really know about when you're on them or following them.

Also, as Debs as just pointed out I have to take her to work on a morning, early shift starts at 7.00 and there's no bus that can get her there for that time.

Teh pure snobbery of some folk is laughable -= they don't want to go on public transport 'cos of having to rub shoulders with the public

Or maybe they want to get to where they want to go without spending a vast fortune for a vile experience. Who knows, maybe they can't use public transport because there simply isn't any.

(The above was penned by a cycle commuter who also uses a bike in town at weekends. I also use a lumping great turbocharged 4WD estate car at weekends, and occasionaly I just go for a drive in my Mercedes. 🙂 )

being dirty expensive and inefficient is not an inherent characteristic of public transport

When funded to the tune of half a billion pounds by general taxation!

Look at it this way - Edinburgh's Tram system has cost nearly three years worth of Edinburgh's total council tax revenues (225 million per year) - median council tax is about £1200 per household - so, if TJ were to pay for his own share of that clean, efficient public transport system, it would have actually cost him about £3.5k!

Sheesh, you could have bought a car for that TJ 😉

You can't put a price on convenience or freedom or fun.

And then you go all crazy when someone is eating a steak FFS. Cars have a lot to answer for. However we are all responsible for it. Yes I own a car, yes I own a motorcyle (actually about 56 right now) and no I don't NEED my car. I just wanted it and find it very convenient. But I am not kidding myself. I do have a choice, it's just that I don't want the alternative.

I love trains but foreign ones are way better than ours.
I hate local buses. They're cramped, cold, uncomfortable and unreliable. Long distance are ok, but not as good as train.
Local public transport sucks.
I'm in Scotland.

dangerousbeans - Member
Also, as Debs as just pointed out I have to take her to work on a morning, early shift starts at 7.00 and there's no bus that can get her there for that time.

[i]Car allowance of £6k + getting something like 23-24p/mile for the first 10000 business miles [/i]

Uplink - are you claiming the difference between what your employer pays you and the HMRC max (40ppm) through your tax-code?

I'm a raving, lefty, liberal, greenie who hates cars and loves bikes. But...

I gave up on getting the bus to work. It sits in the same queue of traffic as the cars, is unreliable, expensive and often over crowded. I can walk the 2.5 mile journey - sometimes more quickly that getting the bus, but always more consistently.

I want public transport to be great, but it's not.

Having said that, I've never driven and never will and have always managed to find work/training within walking-, cycling- or public transport-distance of home. We've always chosen to live within walking distance of our family and have built a life around being car-light, if not car-free.

We have a car at the moment, but have been without one before, including with very young children. We occasionally borrowed a car, and hired one for holidays a couple of times. Otherwise, we got by without.

Not driving does curtail my bike riding. I get to group rides at the local forest by riding there and back (it's only an extra 50 road miles after all). I don't do many event, but when I do I either use trains or cadge a lift (not many trains to Kielder...).

I don't find public transport unpleasant in itself. Only time I have a problem with it is when it takes much too long.

Most people don't have a clue what MPG thier car does (and therefore generally over estimate), they may think they do but very few people can actually be bothered to work out the accurate MPG as opposed to the figure the trip computer(a device that is probably designed to overestimate the MPG and make the manufacturer look good) tells them.

In my Multipla, the indicated MPG is based on US Gallons....

I'm beginning new job (or actually training for it) on Monday. 22 miles on a motorway each way. I won't cycle, obviously, driving will have to do. I might be able to take a coach instead but only time will tell. I wish I could.

very few people can actually be bothered to work out the accurate MPG

If you go by full tank to full tank then bear in mind that not all pumps stop at the same level of fullness. Only real way is to take down the number of litres you put in each time and the mileage travelled over a long period of time. And yes I can't be bothered to do that for the sake of a few percent. I know my trip computer is accurate to 1 or 2 mpg either way.

You don't have to take the motorway, do you?

Dibbs - I used to compare indicated to actual mpg. It always over-read. Normally by about 3%. I think the worst I had was 8% but that was a one off from 10's of comparisons and not sure why it happened.

No, I could go through several towns and villages and instead of 30 mins take over 90.
The only thing is I can listen to Opeth or Vivaldi or whatever I fancy when I drive, sing aloud, fart and burp. And nobody will tell me I'm ill mannered.
In the Summer my little Honda Bros 650 will hopefully be useful.

Buy an ipod and take the bus, if it's feasable of course.

HC I meant that you could cycle off the motorway...

Want to know where that tax revenue goes? Have a peek at these, just sorry that 2 parts have been pulled but you should get the idea at just how much sh&t our country is in...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPtayYoHoCY&feature=related

and if that's not bad enough here is how they get it, Shocking!!

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-shock-doctrine/4od#3053769

Euroclive - a load of sensationalist ranting for someone semidetached from reality. Read up a bit about him

a load of sensationalist ranting for someone semidetached from reality.

anyone else's irony detector gone off....

lol @iDave, like a big flashing beacon! 🙂

TJ is sounds like you have hit the jackpot with your public transport you use and I am most happy for you. The sad reality is that the majority of us do not have that experience. More than happy to sit next to someone on a train but when I have to spend 30 mins being ranted at by a drunk or intimidated by a load of lads getting stella'd up then it makes me want to be in my car.

Public transport should be just that it should be publicly owned and all profits driven into improving it, or less profit taken and tickets made cheaper.

molgrips, that's exactly what I said - 90 mins, I rode a few times into the LBS I worked at and that was just 7 miles nearer. The problem is you cyclo on the second busiest road around here, the one taken by mums dropping kids to school, buses, lorries and everybody who wants to avoid the toll motorway. Very unsafe comparing to London where I rode everywhere.
TJ might be lucky with his situation regarding public transport but... as a leftie dreaming of something he never experienced (socialism) he might want to know back in the 70's in Poland my mum walked to the bus stop with me in a buggy, took the bus to the creche where I spent the whole day for free whilst she was working in the city. The buggy would stay at the bus stop, nobody would ever touch it. The bus came every 6 mins outside the peak times and every 3 mins during the rush time. I'm sure TJ would've loved to live there and then (apart from his reliance of capitalism giving him the goods he likes - shoes, bikes, campers, cars, decent food in shops et.)
In Ireland, at least in here, public transport is poor, never on time, full of people who've just finished their fag and who stick as hell. Or school-bound teenagers and that's even worse.