[Closed] Should petrol cost 6.30 a gallon?

2 pints of beer or the ability to move me, four others and 2 tones of metal 42 miles? Seems quite reasonable.

depends where you are & how much your government taxes it.

I was in Canada in 2009, the people I was with were complaining about CAD 1.20ish per litre; we were paying GBP 1.20ish at the time, at an exchange rate of about CAD1.70 to the pound

let's put it this way, it's not going to get any cheaper 🙁

Difficult one. I would say yes but then I drive an eco car with a puny engine, i.e my buying choice was dictated by the cost of fuel.

If fuel was cheap then I would have had the bigger engine which consumes more fuel and drive at 80mph rather then 65mph.

Fuel should be £12 a gallon, then maybe people would think more seriously about finding better ways of getting around (by bike perhaps!!).

It's cheaper than beer, and beer is just basically wheat that's gone off, it doesn't need to be buried under the ground for a bazillion years then drilled out and refined. Petrol/diesel is great value for what it does. Not that I want to pay more for it.

The way we price it/value it is pretty absurd tbh, we charge tax on it and exploration rights and the like but we treat it like the resource itself is completely free.

thankfully I work from home 4 days a week. Still need a 60+ mile round trip once a week though

beer is a different beast though. raw materials are grown and the methods for converting them into the finished product are a damn sight cheaper than refining crude oil

It's of more practical benefit than gold or Versace fabric..........
Wait 'til we have to pay for fresh water by the £

Given the rate that folk seem to want to use it up I'd say it's nowhere near expensive enough yet. If drivers were prepared to slow down a bit (like stay within the speed limit) then they'd use a lot less.

No, it should be 42p a litre.

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I remember it at 44p per gallon!

Rockhopper - Member
Fuel should be £12 a gallon, then maybe people would think more seriously about finding better ways of getting around (by bike perhaps!!).

what a stupid dream world you must live in...

It is easy as cyclists to take the moral and environmental high ground regarding motoring and cost of fuel. It is also mistaken...

As a society we choose to believe that people prefer to drive rather than travel by other means and that pricing fuel higher will change behaviours. Fundamentally it won't. If you want people to drive less, there needs to be a reversal of centralisation and vertical integration in business. This would lead to the situation of previous generations when many could easily walk, cycle or use public transport to speedily and efficiently commute to work - despite the relatively lower cost of fuel. Businesses are no longer seen as organisations to usefully employ labour, provide means for individuals to earn and aid the local economy. Instead businesses are viewed as a straightforward mechanism to turn minimal labour paid at a minimum rare into value for shareholders. Any other benefits are circumstantial, deemed of low value and easily/conveniently discarded.

If we want to really be champions of the decreased use of cars and hence oil, maybe it is better to support localism, regeneration of local employment opportunities and refuse to buy into the shareholding myths of 20 odd years ago. This will have a much greater effect than choosing individually to cycle to work, drive a lower emission car or blaming people who need to use cars to commute efficiently and effectively.

Driving is freedom to go anyway you like.

The higher the price of fuel the higher the price of everything so cyclist or not you will be paying ...

Technology will improve and will compensate for the increase in price by producing more fuel efficient and environmental friendly vehicles.

🙄

Fuel tax is one of the primary ways of raising money for the government, approximately 80% of the pump price is tax and duty. The harsh reality is if it wasn't collected via fuel we'd pay by another means. Fuel costs pretty much the same throughout the wealthier countries in Europe. Yes of course it's a lot and paid for out of income already taxed but there is no simple solution.

@Rockhopper if fuel cost £12 a gallon that would devastate the countryside, farming and tourism, it would make a biking trip to Wales, Peak District, Scotland etc look very very pricey - never mind driving to the Alps. Plus think of the increase in the cost of everything in the shops most of which is delivered by road.

@ambrose I remember it going up to 32p a gallon 🙂

if fuel cost £12 a gallon that would ... make a biking trip to Wales, Peak District, Scotland etc look very very pricey - never mind driving to the Alps.

There's a reasonable argument to be made that that's a good thing.

Just filled up my rental car in California. $54..... So about £40.

It'd cost me double back home.

DrRS**** but how many mpg was your rental car doing? Had this conversation today with my US colleagues, we all drive V8 4.0 litre work trucks that might do 18-20 mpg if we lucky, i explained the UK norm is to drive a 2.0 TD at 40-45 mpg so over the year it's costs the same in fuel . The UK drivers have simply adapted to the fuel costs and will buy cars that are more economical or change their driving habits - it's working. I dropped them the idea that the US will soon be doing the same too if their gas prices continue to rise they way they are. They thought I was mad but let's see

$4/gal (USD/US gallon) seems to be a bit of a threshold for a lot of folks over here. When the price gets up that high, the grumbling really gets bad.

Natural gas fueled vehicles may catch on over here, too. I've read that the fuel costs are 1/2 that of gasoline. But refueling infrastructure is one issue that has to be addressed, as is the cost of converting gasoline vehicles. Some fleet users (city buses, local utility companies, and similar) are running parts of their fleet on natural gas and building their own fueling point. And Ford is going to be offering a factory fitted natural gas F-150 pickup soon.

If gasoline goes up too much and/or natural gas vehicle prices drop, they'll be an option.

I can remember gas being $0.49/gal! 😯

Edit - I do see Americans becoming more aware of fuel efficiency; but I don't ever see all of us running tiny cars like the Europeans do. The best selling vehicle in the US has been the Ford F-150 full size pickup for the last 24 years...

I remember people in the uk saying £1/l was the threshold and no one would pay more than that.

We are now paying 50% more than that and nothing changed.

Fuel should not be taxed nor VAT'd, therefore about 55p per litre with a limit set at 60p whereby the Govt stump up the difference.

Seems fair to me.

As long as there are more car drivers than pedestrians, cyclists and bus passengers combined on the roads, motoring is far too cheap.

an opportunity to post this again 🙂

Fuel should be £12 a gallon,

Fuel should cost however much it costs to refine and deliver it to the pump surely.? If it were £12 a gallon then my camping trips with the nipper would be impossible. The cost of food would rocket like it already has done and I can guaranty my wages will not be rocketing to compensate.

Ah the old lets make fuel very expensive as it'll be a good thing after all it's not like the price of fuel effects anything else at all.

if fuel cost £12 a gallon that would ... make a biking trip to Wales, Peak District, Scotland etc look very very pricey - never mind driving to the Alps.

There's a reasonable argument to be made that that's a good thing.

Yup stop the biggest industry in rural areas, tourism, by driving up the cost then whilst there's no more coming into area and transport cost have increased watch the prices of goods in rural areas soar, jobs lost and people move out of the area. Great do it straight away.

Over here in Oz it's $1.60/l (where I am) and people are slowly starting to come around to the idea that 4l v8's might not be as practical.

All the old BS about you can fix it with a hammer and a pair of fishnets is great but most of these people never venture very far from civilisation & mobile phone cover. I have seen a tow truck recovering people from the middle of no where just fine.

Oil is too precious a resource to burn, the things we can make from it are incredible.

Taxation as a method of behaviour change is useful, but it needs to be done hand in hand with alternatives. The Manchester congestion charge scheme promised a vast investment in public transport prior to introduction but a lazy no vote based on scare tactics and misinformation won out. The love affair with the car is still going strong breaking the habit will be hard.

Fuel should cost however much it costs to refine and deliver it to the pump surely.

I dont think so. I think the tax should help pay for all of the costs of motoring. The pollution alone costs us billions- twice as much as obesity which everyone always loves to go on about.

Seems pretty cheap to me. People still make most journeys of only a few miles by car when they could walk or ride.

The pollution alone costs us billions

Really.?

It's cheaper than bottled mineral water bought from the petrol station.

No.

Some interesting comparisons of the price of petrol compared to inflation:

http://www.speedlimit.org.uk/petrolprices.html

http://www.significancemagazine.org/details/webexclusive/1397283/The-historical-price-of-petrol--how-bad-do-we-have-it.html

Ah the old lets make fuel very expensive as it'll be a good thing after all it's not like the price of fuel effects anything else at all.

Agreed, it helps people make choices that are good for society and themselves. If petrol is more expensive then more people will use public transport, more people will use bicycles, more people will walk. When petrol first topped 1.5e per litre in France consumption fell by 10% and the number of bicycles in use jumped up. Unfortunately the effect was only temporary as consumers got used the price and fell back into their bad old ways.

Edukator you really are a #1[img] [/img] sometimes, what about those of us who live in the countryside away from any public transport or rail links?, a car is a total necessity where i live and buying petrol on minimum wage at current prices is crippling.

So a higher fuel price will encourage you to live nearer to your place of work, Somafunk.

@Rockhopper if fuel cost £12 a gallon that would devastate the countryside, farming and tourism,

Farming uses duty free fuel, so would be OK if most of the £12 was duty...

Edukator you seem to have no concept of social freedom.

Sorry, as i have mentioned previously on here i don't argue or try to convince others of my point of view - get back inside your chateau before i tell the socialists to breach your high n' mighty walls and drag you outside for a personality and perspective realignment.

So a higher fuel price will encourage you to live nearer to your place of work, Somafunk.

On this I have to agree, the current way we organise our lives in the UK is pretty insane. E.g. I live in Cambridge where something like 20% of residents actually work in London, so spend 2+ hours each day commuting 60 miles each way by train to London. On the Cambridge Science Park (3000 + employees) about 80% of employees live elsewhere and spend ages stuck on the A14 every morning and night trying to get to work.

Everyone would have a much nicer life is they just lived near where they worked...

I live in a place with a socialist president, socialist government, socialist council and socialist mayor. These people are allied with the greens and their policy is exactly what I've typed (not that I vote for them). I can't see them breaching my walls other than to congratulate me on my nationalistic choice of frugal vehicle, living within a 9-minute walk of where Madame works and having a humble but energy positive dwelling.

Everyone would have a much nicer life is they just lived near where they worked...

I spent ten years living 1.2miles down a quiet country lane from work, and it was absolutely brilliant. I could nip home for lunch on my push bike. Quite often just walked it, full moons where genuinely lovely experiences. (Late finishes involved)

Currently a bit stumped however. There is a solution but it requires some certainty with the girlfriends job. Which there isn't. Net result is approx 35k per year in mileage. Which sucks salty donkeys balls.

I actually managed to avoid car ownership until 2008, efficient cars do help. At least the wallet, I pay pretty much the same per mile in fuel as I did in 2008. Don't see that lasting much longer though.

Ok, I live in Dumfries And Galloway, earn 50p more than minimum wage for one job (chocolatier), it's local and 5 miles from my house - i work there 3 days/week.

I also work in a mates bike shop 3 days/week, very small shop - only two of us in there, struggling to get by in a sparsely populated and regionally lowest wage rates in the country but we are ticking over and i take minimum wage from this, i realise i should be on more but i want the shop to continue to trade - a 10 mile there n' back journey each day.

On a sunday i usually help out at a mates farm, 30 miles away.

And don't say i could cycle into work, i do sometimes but it's not always practical due to health reasons i'm not about to go into, i'd be financially far better off not working and going back on disability but i'm not - what irks me is folk saying move closer to work etc..etc, some folk are paid very poorly, have no savings to speak of, live in rented accommodation and live from week to week/month to month (moi?) so think about how others may live before purging the contents of your bile duct on the forum.

Pfft...i'm away to drive to work....with a bit of careful driving i can get my 30yr old Golf to do 34mpg...woohoo!, or if i decide to boot it i get 18mpg....hmm?...... how do i feel t'day? 😉

[i]Fuel should be £12 a gallon, then maybe people would think more seriously about finding better ways of getting around (by bike perhaps!!). [/i]

Says the single man that no doubt lives in the city.

Haven't we been through this bollocks many times before?

Certainly a bit of a shock to know it was under £1/l as recently as mid 2009

£12 a gallon would kill off village life and rural business. It would tip struggling businesses over the edge and shove food prices through the roof. At a time when lots of people are struggling I can't see how this could be considered a good idea.

I'd love to live local to where I work, in fact last time we moved it was to within 20 mins by bike from work, I got made redundant a month later, next job was 100 mile round commute, lasted 2 years, redundant again, 7.5 years in next job, 34 mile round trip, even managed to cycle that sometimes (lots of big hills), redundant again, next job lasted 6 months, 60 mile round trip and now to my current job, also 60 mile round trip, managed 14 months there so far and looking good. So I would have had to move 5 times, disrupting the kids etc. They walk to school locally and my wife works 2 miles from home so if we moved they'd need to drive.

The only reason people lived local to work in the past is people couldn't afford cars. Increasing the cost of driving will drive more people off the roads, people on low incomes, if you want economic apartheid then tax away. Most people given a choice would work locally, we can't, we go where the work is and since the days of a job for life have long gone it's not an option to move to where you work.

Your choices, Somafunk. If you are keen not to make the best economic choices for yourself I fully understand that making the best choices for society is an even lower priority.

Looking at you whole post I suggest going back on disability, possibly retraining and looking for a job in an area with better economic conditions in which you may prosper.

My first Saturday job was serving in a petrol filling station, 5 star (remember that?) was 37.5p per gallon.

Eee 37p a gallon. Me sat on the back of a trailbike balancing a couple of x MOD jerry cans,and heading up a farm track tospend all day on our home made track.... Goes all misty eyed. 😆

Nah....I like where i live, i like my job(s) collegues and working conditions as if i need a day off for medical reasons or even if i feel i need one i take it, no hassle at all. I'm not fussed bout money in the slightest as i'd rather have my quality of life and see trees and barren galloway hillsides from my window, whether that be at work or home. As for retraining i do have a BSC in Mech Eng, also HND in Electronic Engineering and i originally qualified as a motor vehicle mechanic so i guess i could prob do something else but finding an employer who will employ someone with lifelong/ongoing spinal medical issues is impossible despite what the government legislate regarding equal opportunities blah.

And i'm glad you took what i said with nae offence, i type as i would speak to mates etc and nae ill-will or suchlike is inferred in the slightest.

PS: I took my time in the car to get to work, i managed over 33mpg t'day 😉

i'll believe that people find fuel expensive when they stop driving like it isn't. The ***ts hooning past my house all day (residential street that leads nowhere really) are clearly in a hurry to burn as much as possible, as quickly as possible.

i think it is expensive, so i drive like a nun. The abuse i get for sticking to speed limits suggests that i'm wrong though.

[i]Says the single man that no doubt lives in the city.

Haven't we been through this bollocks many times before?[/i]

Yes with TJ.

If fuel went up to £12 a ltr we wouldn't be able to afford to travel on public transport either!

That photo of me was taken in about 1973-4 IIRC, my Ma & Pa took it over in 1969 & fuel was 78 old pence a gallon according to the AA

[i]i'll believe that people find fuel expensive when they stop driving like it isn't.[/i]

This. I tootle to work each day watching my miles per gallon ometer go up & up, but sticking to the speed limit & I always get some silly git up my arse who's either late for work, loves their job & can't wait to get there or doesn't give a toss about the price of fuel.

& as for people moving closer to work, WTF planet are you on Edukator?

edukator for ignoramus of the day! no acknowledgement for the knock on effects it would have on society & the millions already struggling to get by.

Everyone would have a much nicer life is they just lived near where they worked

Where are all these empty houses near workplaces that we can just move into?

Oh and if people are on the breadline how the F are they expected to be able to move house? It isn't free.

Feel the love.

I live on the same planet as you, however the countries I spend most time in are talking about the "energy change". A move to a society in which the pattern of energy use and production changes to a more sustainable model which also reduces dependency on fossil fuels.

The cost of public transport in neither country has anything to do with fuel cost. It is priced to get a maximum number of people to use it. It only takes six people on a bus to get better energy efficiency than those people in six average cars. My local busses cost 1e a trip (less if you buy a book of tickets), regional busses 2e a trip, commuters can get passes for trains that make journeys cost less than the petrol alone. Tax petrol and use the money to subsidise more energy efficient public ptransport. Make using individual cars the expensive and inconvenient option.

i think we need to accept that people change jobs more often than perhaps they would like.

I'm only 35, i've been made redundant ... 6 times.

i moved closer to my jobs, each time it was an expensive mistake - i won't be doing it again.

A bus with 6 people in it is not more efficient than a car with 6 people in it. That's just wrong. Buses are much bigger, heavier and are built to carry many more people so when they are not carrying more people they are not more efficient. Public transport, whether privately funded and run or publicly, has to run at a profit and there lies the problem and the paradox. For public transport to be attractive to people it needs to be convenient - which means alot of busses running, on many routes visiting every town and village. This means alot of empty busses not making much money. You can make public transport work in large and highly populated towns and cities, like London, Birmingham, Manchester etc, but beyond that it is very difficult to run an extensive network efficiently (both economically and environmentally). So public transport is only the solution in some areas.

Care to post up the fuel consumption figures for a bus and the average car Wobbliscott. If you accuse someone of posting incorrect information it's only polite to post figures.

How about comparing a 17-seater Renault Master Bus with your own car, Wobbliscott. The kind of bus that is ideal for serving rural areas. That wasn't the basis for my six times figure, I checked the figures for a normal city bus and derived my six people figure for that compared with the urban figures for a medium car.

& as for people moving closer to work, WTF planet are you on Edukator?

Think I'm with Edukator on this one. Society has been transformed by decades of cheap fuel. Big suburbs, out of town shopping, etc. clear divisions between industrial space and living space with the car transporting people between the two. This doesn't seem compatible with the rising cost of a limited resource so at some point something will need to change.

Top candidate as the next ten pager pointless thread.

Could you link me a less pointless thread please, Ian.

@neilsonwheels

£20 billion they reckon

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18617815

Im curious, how bad will the air need to get before people stop using their cars for every journey less than 5 miles. Funny everyone seems quite upset about possible water contamination from fracking but the idea of driving less to make the air less poisonous is quite outlandish.

Cars are great and we need them. We do not need to stop driving, but we should start using cars more responsibly. Most of the people where I work live locally yet few cycle. Kids are all taken to school in the car etc. A large proportion of journeys are less than 4 miles, but people just jump in the car.

Ed,

The subject matter is irrelevant, it's the back and forth of repeated arguments for one opinion or another that defines these threads.

Your view and the alternatives are clear but these go on and on and on ...

(Fwiw i dont even know how much fuel is, I barely use a car, live and work in close proximity and enjoy the lifestyle that allows very much).

The only reason people lived local to work in the past is people couldn't afford cars

Surely the fact that in many households nowadays two people work, and not usually at the same place makes a big difference too?

Although vast numbers of people do live short distances like 5 miles or less from work and don't cycle, I don't know how common it is to actually be not practically able to get to work by anything other than car (I suspect it is a bit biased on here with lots of people in high paid but often high staff turnover IT jobs, where people tend to move jobs quite often and look for jobs within quite a wide radius.

The thing to remember is that whilst it is inefficient to drive short distances and the cost per mile is high, the actual cost is pretty low. A tank lasts ages.

Surely fuel is only a temporary solution for transport.
If fuel was sustainable, the discussion would change to congestion/parking/peak car/etc which it more important imo.

Putting fuel prices up to subsidise development of alternatives would make sense I think, but only to drive development. Using it to deter people from making bad decisions is pointless - it always just means that the wealthy can do what they like and the already struggling suffer further. Education is far more important.

The problem is that currently, electric cars aren't the answer in isolation.

I'd love to live close to work but as I work at client sites no place is good for me. We have two cars as both work but as I'm working in London these days it hardly gets used so a bit of a waste really.

Car ownership has generally increased over time and maybe that means society has been getting a little more equal? I remember when the M25 was built going passed the bottom of my school, imagine what driving around the SE would be without that now - so many more car trips made. People wouldn't like not being able to afford to drive - human rights right? Like having Sky TV and fags. So a decrease in car ownership would be considered a bad thing - like falling house prices, the government have propped them both up in recent years.

Currently working in Oman at the moment where its equivalent of 20p litre, so of course everyone drives everwhere in 4litre v8 land cruisers doing 9 mpg, so i guess affordability does play into people decision making. Also in the omani press yesterday i read an article about car accidents here being one of the leading causes of death and disability, not to mention the effects of air pollution. So I guess in the uk whilst 6.30 a gallon is what we pay, it certainly falls short of the true cost to society. Not that im anti car, but i think the bigger picture is often forgotten when we chose to drive our cars.

Fuel should be £12 a gallon, then maybe people would think more seriously about finding better ways of getting around (by bike perhaps!!).

This. I tootle to work each day watching my miles per gallon ometer go up & up, but sticking to the speed limit & I always get some silly git up my arse who's either late for work, loves their job & can't wait to get there or doesn't give a toss about the price of fuel.

That'd be me. Sometimes late (damn kids), loving my job and in hurry to be there, with a general disregard for the cost of fuel or the mpg of the car. Doesn't matter what I don't to it, I can't get it below 40mpg and I have fun on the way.
Could I ask that if you come across a slower moving vehicle, you hang back though so I can jump up the line. Thanks.

With the amount of unnecessary car journeys (i.e. local school run) even those on low incomes make, and the number of cars owned by those out of work, I'd say the price obviously isn't high enough.

Everyone would have a much nicer life is they just lived near where they worked...

Speak for yourself, I work in the City, no bloody way I'd want to live there, and with my parents having just sold a small studio (ie single room) flat in the Barbican for £445k I'd never be able to afford to either!

I see a couple of people have commented on countries with cheaper fuel (such as here in the USA), and how we all drive big V8s. True, most people do have big engines, however, even "fuel efficient" cars here have crap fuel consumption!
Over here a 1.6l Fiesta with a manual is rated at 31mpg (37UK). A Prius only gets 48 (57UK). The deck is seriously stacked here to keep the populous hooked on spending on fuel. Plus, the average motorist here in the midwest drives over 20,000 miles a year vs half that in the UK. We have zero public transport as an alternative too!

"Over here a 1.6l Fiesta with a manual is rated at 31mpg (37UK). A Prius only gets 48 (57UK)"

Do these figures account for a US gallon being ~3.8 litres and a UK gallon being 4.54 litres?

Various people have mentioned that if you live in the country, you need a car because there are no shops and no public transport.

There was a time when motoring was too expensive for most people and there were local shops and good rural public transport.
What a lucky coincidence.

thekingisdead - Member
"Over here a 1.6l Fiesta with a manual is rated at 31mpg (37UK). A Prius only gets 48 (57UK)"

Do these figures account for a US gallon being ~3.8 litres and a UK gallon being 4.54 litres?

Yip.. The numbers in brackets are converted to UK mpg...

MidlandTrailquestsGraham - Member
As long as there are more car drivers than pedestrians, cyclists and bus passengers combined on the roads, motoring is far too cheap.

Or public transport to expensive?

the UK is tiny. how far are you ever from work? and with the population density, public transport should be easy.

people are going to have to get used to the lack of convenience mindset pretty soon, as oil is not coming down in price again.

There was a time when motoring was too expensive for most people and there were local shops and good rural public transport.
What a lucky coincidence.

I think the public transport element of this was a very brief phase, as is the current car as personal transport phase. In the grand scheme of things.. In general people just rarely left the villages they inhabited.

the UK is tiny. how far are you ever from work? and with the population density, public transport should be easy.

Tell that to those commuting into London from Bristol. And that has good transport links.

Don't get me wrong, their choice. But they pay a lot, and it's no 30 minutes bicycle ride. And the cost of public trains taken at short notice, to get you into an office for office hours can be eye wateringly expensive.

Yes cars fuel has become expensive, but to a degree the cost has been offset by development of cars and their efficiency in recent years.
I mused on this whilst driving a borrowed Insignia Ecoflex diesel the other week. Nearly 60mpg without trying, whilst still capable of similar speeds to the 2.0litre petrol cars of 20 years ago.

if fuel cost £12 a gallon that would ... make a biking trip to Wales, Peak District, Scotland etc look very very pricey - never mind driving to the Alps.

There's a reasonable argument to be made that that's a good thing.

Yup stop the biggest industry in rural areas, tourism, by driving up the cost then whilst there's no more coming into area and transport cost have increased watch the prices of goods in rural areas soar, jobs lost and people move out of the area. Great do it straight away.

You miss the point that if [b][i][u]fuel[/b][/i][/u] was £12/gallon, flying abroad would be prohibitively expensive.

Imagine if all those £££ spent on flights to Malaga were actually spent on the drive to Margate? It'd be a huge boost to the tourism industry (although it would bankrupt the airports, but they're not British owned so less of a blow).