[Closed] TJ is right (again)

And how much was tax and insurance back then? And what about the fact that wages have not followed inflation? Poor findings! These days you'd be lucky not to spend half the annual fuel costs in insurance alone.

So paying an extra 10% then? What about insurance and maintenance costs? And compared with the cost of public transport? Lothian bus tickets have gone up 100% in price in the 13 years I've been in Edinburgh.

And what about the fact that wages have not followed inflation?

Not really relevant to the story is it - separate argument.

Not really relevant to the story is it - separate argument.

It is entirely relevant - since wages have not followed inflation the real-terms cost of motoring has increased more than the 10% specified.

Isn't the fact that the 1980's petrol price is quoted in today's money mean that inflation has been taken into account?

ok

It is entirely relevant - since wages have not followed inflation

or am I missing something..?

It is entirely relevant - since wages have not followed inflation the real-terms cost of motoring has increased more than the 10% specified.

you seem to be getting cross that wages have dropped in real terms which affects how much money you have to spend. However the fact remains that the cost of fuelling a car has not changed much which is what the article says. Public transport has massively increased in real terms in the same period

Ps can you post up evidence that wages have dropped in real terms in the same period - Dont know tbh what the truth is

Pedant

since wages have not followed inflation the real-terms cost of motoring has increased more than the 10% specified

Isn't the fact that the 1980's petrol price is quoted in today's money mean that inflation has been taken into account?

Inflation, yes. But that's nothing to do with actual cost WRT average income.

or am I missing something..?

😆

And cars nowadays are prety good, needing a service every 15-20k. The average Cortina was rubbish and needed fixing every other weekend, finally expiring at about 75k.

"Back in the day"? You can keep it.

you seem to be getting cross that wages have dropped in real terms which affects how much money you have to spend. However the fact remains that the cost of fuelling a car has not changed much which is what the article says. Public transport has massively increased in real terms in the same period

Fair point, but it [OP] was in the context of "it's no different now to then".

Ps can you post up evidence that wages have dropped in real terms in the same period - Dont know tbh what the truth is

No, it was a figure I read somewhere, I've long since forgotten where I'm, afraid!

Ps can you post up evidence that wages have dropped in real terms in the same period - Dont know tbh what the truth is

Wages today are a smaller percentage of the GDP than they were 30 years (12% less I think) Don't ask me for a link though - the information is out there, somewhere.

And cars nowadays are prety good, needing a service every 15-20k. The average Cortina was rubbish and needed fixing every other weekend, finally expiring at about 75k.

I think that's somewhat displaced by the fact that when parts wear out on modern vehicles, or electrical faults develop, it can practically write-off a perfectly usable vehicle solely through cost. I'm not sure that was the case in the 70s.

i know the following is US data but is applicable to the UK
[url= http://www.ers.usda.gov/AmberWaves/September08/Findings/PercentofIncome.htm ]food expediture[/url]

Food is far cheaper now than it has been, as a percentage of income. so more money to spend on tat.

I think that's somewhat displaced by the fact that when parts wear out on modern vehicles, or electrical faults develop, it can practically write-off a perfectly usable vehicle solely through cost. I'm not sure that was the case in the 70s.

tell me about it..........

My 3.5 yr old Toyota needs new injectors - £1,238 😯

Lothian bus tickets have gone up 100% in price in the 13 years I've been in Edinburgh.

Make that 100% plus 10p, £1.30 a single now 🙁

Food is far cheaper now than it has been, as a percentage of income. so more money to spend on tat.

Yep, food in the UK, relatively speaking, is much cheaper than it was 30/40/50 years ago. Certain produce from third world countries such as cocoa, has remained unchanged for 30 years - despite chocolate prices in the UK having gone up in the last 30 years.

Don't know how much longer that will last though, probably not very long. Already cocoa has hit a thirty year high :

[url= http://www.choclatique.com/blog/?p=1448 ]Global Issues Are Driving Up the Price of Chocolate[/url]

uplink - why the hell does it need new injectors at that age ?

Yup - cars are cheap, driving is cheap. private motoring gets huge subsidies from the public purse.

Its electoral suicide to have sensible policies on this. So we will merely wait until change is forced upon us rather than sensibly plan for it and move towards the inevitable end of private motoring.

Cars are evil. That is all you need to know.

Make that 100% plus 10p, £1.30 a single now

I'm sure Colin will trump me on this, but cheapest adult bus ticket you could get when I moved to Edinburgh was 50p. I think day tickets were about £1.50 and a month bus pass was £30. Aye so in 13 years, tickets are now going to be £1.30 and £3.20 for a day. Luckily just got my 28 day pass (as a student!) for £43, so I'm guessing a full price one is £60?

Ker-razy!

uplink - why the hell does it need new injectors at that age ?

No idea, I'm hoping that Toyota help out with it, it's only done 38K

TJ is right (again)

[i]ok[/i]

I'm going for a lie down. Ernie_lynch accepted that he was wrong (didn't he?) (Don't ruin it for me)

TandemJeremy - Member
Yup - cars are cheap, driving is cheap. private motoring gets huge subsidies from the public purse.

Its electoral suicide to have sensible policies on this. So we will merely wait until change is forced upon us rather than sensibly plan for it and move towards the inevitable end of private motoring.

What's the sensible policy on this in your opinion?

TJ is right (again)

He's been right before?

😛 etc

I'm going for a lie down. Ernie_lynch accepted that he was wrong (didn't he?) (Don't ruin it for me)

Yes, if it makes you happy.

Personally I thought it was cause I couldn't be bothered. But if that is taken as me accepting that I was wrong, I'm ok with it.

What's the sensible policy on this in your opinion?

ratchet up the cost of motoring which in itself will slowly push change and use the money raised to subsidise public transport.

If petrol was £20 a gallon how long till cars did 100 mpg plus and how long until commuting long distances in cars becomes non-viable?

We will have to change as energy will get more expensive and especially oil based energy. It would be better to do this in a planned manner rather than waiting until forced. Get the alternatives in place now while there is spare money and time to do it

So TJ does that mean we will be limited by the range we travel if we only rely on public transport?

😮

I don't agree with ratcheting up the price of traditional fuels, that is not going to solve anything - especially as most people can't afford to move now (and speaking as a mobile engineer what I charge to service a pumping system would go up massively as I would have to cover those additional costs, the same would be true of anything transported by road or the services of anyone who had to travel by road).

What needs to be done is for the EU or National Governements to decide what the successor to oil is going to be once and for all rather than "leave it to the market", invest in that technology and the fueling/charging infrastructure to run it. People will then make the natural progression on cost and environmental gounds.

But it won't happen, so we are... indeed... all doomed.

capt kronos - there is no possible successor to oil. Energy will become more and more expensive, there is no sign of any practical way to provide the energy for personal transport

The timescale is decades. If we don't do something to change the reliance on high energy consuming personal transport then change will be forced upon us.

Far better to plan and provide for this change than to have it forced upon us

I don't want to see fuel made unaffordable overnight - it took a couple of generations to get where we are now, it will take at least a generation to change it to a more sustainable society not so reliant on inefficient high energy consuming personal transport

What public transport? It's fine for the urban elite who have public transport on their doorstep, but get out into rural areas, and you're lucky to have one bus out and back a day, and even then have a walk of a mile or more on narrow unlit lanes. TJ's obsession with a car-free society totally blinds him to the reality of what rural people have to deal with, and no amount of public subsidy will make a blind bit of difference. A work colleague lives six miles away, and currently takes a taxi as he is without a car at the moment. A bus would cost more, and a ten-fifteen minute drive takes over two hours in a bus, because of the route it takes. And as he starts work at 6am, does TJ imagine it would be possible to catch a bus at three in the morning? Or even five, if it took a shorter route? Give me a break.

What is TJ right about though? I don't get it.

I took the Number Forty Six Bus from Swiss Cottage to Grays Inn road today. Great little journey, highly recommended.

Went past, among other delights, St Pancras station, and Caymden Tahyn All!!!

[img] [/img]

Buses rawk! You can sit back and enjoy the journey.

Count - you so miss the point.

I agree it cannot be done overnight. However what you describe is exactly the kind of unsustainable lifestyle we will simply not be able to do in 50 years time

6 miles? Bicycle

I use to get a bus from a village into a town to work starting work at 6.30 am - mile walk, 7 miles in a bus, half mile walk.

Its feasible you know. Teh more people that use public transport the more feasable it is

How are you going to manage when you cannot afford the fuel for your car? it will happen in our lifetimes

When I started drinking in about 1992 and I could get 4 pints for a fiver. (John Smith's Magnet was ale of choice - lager was too dear). In real terms (i.e. correcting for inflation on RPI) it should be 2.06 a pint. Fortunately I now need about 1/3 less beer to get happily pished so it all balances out.

Oh, and the current job pays better than the Saturday and Sunday morning newsagent jobs I had back then.

I hope private motoring is reduced by healthier more sustainable alternatives being developed - don't want my kids having to live around motor culture. Not having to endure Clarkson would be a bonus.

Oh, and Edinburgh buses were 80p in 2002 when I moved here - allowing for inflation should be £1.06 now - not £1.30 as they will be next week....

I don't see any way that we can change the personal mobility that we now enjoy - but there are surely much easier and better ways to save energy anyway. We (the west) waste so much energy utterly needlessly (just noticed I have left the hall and kitchen lights on... ahem...) that there are vast savings to be made.

There will be ongoing personal mobility, there will be an alternative fuel... we can't turn the clock back on that one (well, we can - but 99.999% of the world will be hugely resistant to it).

That isn't to say that I think it would be a bad thing to make the world a more local orientated place. I actually quite like the idea. It just isn't going to happen! Whether we go electric, compressed air, methanol, hydrogen or something else that we haven't thought of yet, I am pretty sure that a solution will come along that allows business as usual.

Now - I best go and turn those lights off 😉

Are they energy saving bulbs though? Cos if they are, it's ok if you leave them on, because you're actually [i]saving[/i] energy. 😀

TJ - Nice theory on pushing us to public transport, but my wife's job and mine are around 60 mile apart. I suppose we could cycle (and do the TdF for light relief) but I think it actually make one of us unemployed or we only see each other at the weekends (and likewise our sons for one of us)

1qm
another who fails to grasp the basic point.

As oil runs out your lifestyle will become unsustainable.

Lets plan now for the day this will happen.

TJ - Nice theory on pushing us to public transport, but my wife's job and mine are around 60 mile apart.

I think the theory is that you could cycle to the nearest station, then get public transport to your workplace. It's not a bad theory, and I find myself agreeing with TJ on this one - like he says, it's not a short-term solution, but will probably be necessary in the long run. (Probably: cheap fusion power would solve the energy generation problem, allowing the continuing use of private transport. Whether that will happen in our lifetimes is debatable...)

mogrim - you cannot put a fusion generator in a car. That may solve the domenstic and industrial energy issues but cannot do so for private cars. There is no sign of an alternative way of powering private cars that comes anywhere close to the internal combustion engine

The theory is that you will not be able to sustain that lifestyle in future - lets plan for changes now and use fuel taxation to fund the change

I think the theory is that you could cycle to the nearest station, then get public transport to your workplace

What I've been doing for years.