“There will be people who have no alternative but to drive, other than moving house or finding a different job.”

This happened to me. We used to live in Sheffield. Mrs FD’s company relocated her to West Yorkshire (no choice in the matter) and because over the course of 8 years they will move her around various locations in West Yorkshire, and because she works very long tiring shifts we thought it was better that we live nearer her work. So for me that means a 100 mile a day commute. Which takes me about 1.5 hours each way.

To do the same journey on public transport would take 3 hrs each way.

Also I have been looking for a job since we moved to Bradford, 2.5 years ago, and as yet unfortunately I have not been sucesful in getting a job nearer to home.

So my only current option is to commute by car or don’t work…

Also I have been looking for a job since we moved to Bradford, 2.5 years ago, and as yet unfortunately I have not been sucesful in getting a job nearer to home.

So my only current option is to commute by car or don’t work…

You mean a job that you want to do/earns enough money to keep you in the lifestyle you want. Not meant as a criticism btw. But I bet there are other options, just not ones that you want to take.

I would have to cycle along several miles of NSL dual carriageway, followed by several miles of 50/40 dual carriageway where the lanes are quite narrow & there really isn’t adequate space for cycling

Are you sure there’s no alternative Stumpy? I ride into work in the centre of Birmingham and a couple of minutes looking at a map for alternative routes mean that I don’t go anywhere near the nightmare busy roads.

1. Many of the people on the road each morning are driving to an office to use a PC (often slower than the one at home) and a phone. This IMHO is bonkers – safety, environment, cost, time yadda yadda yadda. It contributes to the demand for fuel and hence the increasing price.

2. The oil firms can charge as much as they can get away with. They are in business, not providing a service. The tax element is not increasing at anyware near the same rate.

3. Plenty of people on my estate still drive the kids to school in big 4×4, then go straight home. I know this as it takes us only about 5% longer to walk there and back. I can’t see anything below about £20 per litre stopping this.

Start my new job on Thursday after being made redundant 8 mths ago. Last job was 60 mile drive daily. New job 30 min cycle on back lanes and through National Trust permitted cycleway.Car can stay at home!

There is an alternative, a very good one. Road pricing. Cut VED, it’s basically pointless as, although it’s based on CO2 emissions, it doesn’t take into account the mileage you’re doing. That’ll save businesses a fortune, a fleet of lorries can be paying £100,000 a year in VED easily.

Then you pay to use the roads and you pay for fuel. Pay weighted to size/pollution of vehicle, time you’re driving and the roads you’re driving on. Want to drive a 4×4 into town at rush hour? That’ll cost you a fortune. Want to drive some EcoMotion thing along a motorway in the middle of the night? Costs peanuts.

That’s the only way out of this mess that we’ve created for ourselves. Get people actually thinking about the cost of each individual journey. The technology already exists, unfortunately, we’re going to have to be in total gridlock (or complete economic downfall due to the price of fuel) before a political party has the balls to implement it

unfortunately, we’re going to have to be in total gridlock

But, fortunately, we’re not far from this situation 🙂

All it takes here is for a minor prang during rush hour and the traffic’s stationary all over town.

“You mean a job that you want to do/earns enough money to keep you in the lifestyle you want. Not meant as a criticism btw. But I bet there are other options, just not ones that you want to take.”

I agree to some extent. All the commuting I currently do is not good for my lifestyle or health! I thought about re-training and doing a more practical job (currently accountancy) but that takes time and money, its all a vicious circle really…

crazylegs for PM!

Im a IT Consultant, I drive about 1000 miles per month. I cant ride to my customers, there are deadlines to be met and arriving on my bike serveral hours after a server has gone down is not an option.

My business is slowly being crippled. Ideas?

1000 miles per month, lots and lots of cars can do that for under 100 quids worth of petrol, so lets say your car isn’t particularly economical, but isn’t a gas guzzler either, and it costs you 150. If you half the price of fuel, you will save 75 a month, if your business is being crippled for the sake of 75 quid a month you are doing something very very wrong.

1. Many of the people on the road each morning are driving to an office to use a PC (often slower than the one at home) and a phone. This IMHO is bonkers – safety, environment, cost, time yadda yadda yadda. It contributes to the demand for fuel and hence the increasing price.

Yep, I now pretty much only drive when the company is picking up the tab, I work from home (ITSM) the rest of the time and save about £25 a week.

FunkyDunc – how much is it costing you in fuel to drive for 3 hours a day? What about the value of your time? 3 hours a day is 3 times what I was doing so that must be getting on for £75 a week, or £300 a month, add a bit for quality of life and you could take a job paying £500 less a month. If you can either do that job from home or cycle to you could arguably be better off. Especially if you ditched the car completely and saved all the running costs!

There is an alternative, a very good one. Road pricing. Cut VED, it’s basically pointless as, although it’s based on CO2 emissions, it doesn’t take into account the mileage you’re doing. That’ll save businesses a fortune, a fleet of lorries can be paying £100,000 a year in VED easily.

Then you pay to use the roads and you pay for fuel. Pay weighted to size/pollution of vehicle, time you’re driving and the roads you’re driving on. Want to drive a 4×4 into town at rush hour? That’ll cost you a fortune. Want to drive some EcoMotion thing along a motorway in the middle of the night? Costs peanuts.

This option has been aired a few times, and I’m absolutely baffled by it. The amount of fuel you use (and therefore the amount of tax you pay on it) is directly related to vehicle economy, distance traveled, and smoothness of driving i.e. not stop-start in a traffic jam. Why spend literally billions on implementing some ludicrously complicated system that also (if you have your tin-foil hat on) could quite easily be used to track your every movement, when fuel excise does exactly this already?

This option has been aired a few times, and I’m absolutely baffled by it. The amount of fuel you use (and therefore the amount of tax you pay on it) is directly related to vehicle economy, distance traveled, and smoothness of driving i.e. not stop-start in a traffic jam. Why spend literally billions on implementing some ludicrously complicated system that also (if you have your tin-foil hat on) could quite easily be used to track your every movement, when fuel excise does exactly this already?

Fuel duty does part of it, but not the time/location part.

Nick – Tried that… but when I have applied for jobs paying less in accountancy I have been told I am over qualified for the jobs I am going for 😐

FunkyDunc – is accountancy not something you can do freelance/on your own? Driving that far would make me stressed out and miserable, and as above what is your time worth?

Some day in the none too distant future we’re going to run out of cheap fuel. This is the beginning. As the price of fuel goes up, research into alternatives will increase, and people will adapt (eg, not commute to work 100 miles each way etc.)

Better it increases gradually and people have time to adapt than suddenly going up to £10 a litre in 10 years time.

Grum – unfortunately not. I’ve always been in large business accounts ie top FTSE25, so therefore only know large business accountancy, which means I know all the basics for small business but wouldnt be able to advise a small business correctly.

I see a future where there will be butchers, grocers, hardware shops etc on the local main rd, people will work close by their homes and walk to work. There will be a community spirit as people will have time to chat to their neighbours on the walk to work or down the shops…… 😉

I can’t see that working wors. Where in your fevered little imagination dig you dig that vision of insanity from?

😆

These threads always turn out the same.

The Do-Gooders, who have set themselves up to work local.
( Teachers, local Gov workers )
Administer admonishment to those who do the the jobs the do-gooders can’t or won’t ( private sector ).

Sad, circular, debate which achieves nothing but to give the anti carists a dose of Smug for berating the car drivers who rise to the bait.

Of course, its so transparent.
If the anti carists had to drive for work, to pay the mortgage, etc.
Then they’d be defending the place of personal, private transport.

But as they don’t, they get the knives out.

Never ceases to amaze me at how quick folk are to have a go at something, which they do not participate in themselves.
I’ve seen the anti carists on here bend, distort and fake the truth in order to support their anti car stance.

Carry on.
🙄

This option has been aired a few times, and I’m absolutely baffled by it. The amount of fuel you use (and therefore the amount of tax you pay on it) is directly related to vehicle economy, distance traveled, and smoothness of driving i.e. not stop-start in a traffic jam. Why spend literally billions on implementing some ludicrously complicated system that also (if you have your tin-foil hat on) could quite easily be used to track your every movement, when fuel excise does exactly this already?

Because it’s not just linked to the actual burning of fuel in a car. It’s linked in to the fact that people get into their cars at the same time each morning and evening and (as mentioned above) all drive into a town/city, clog up the roads in the process, cause massive wear and tear to the roads and all for what? We need to get out of this 9-5 grind, be a bit more flexible in how we work, when we journey and how we do it. A lot of supermarkets/freight companies etc already take deliveries at night as it’s quicker – less traffic means the lorry isn’t sat around in a queue, burning gallons of fuel going nowhere.

An intelligently designed road pricing system gives people the best of all worlds. Flexible working, less traffic so those who DO have to drive can get there more quickly and with better fuel economy, more people on bikes/walking/on public transport so a more pleasant place to live/work and the money generated goes back into providing better public transport, more bike hire, more cycle paths. One of the few cases where tax ring-fencing is a good thing; the money generated by road pricing HAS to be seen to be going straight back into providing better transport.

exactly zokes. Increase tax on petrol abolish VED. make the polluter pay.

10 years or so ago fuel prices went over the £1 per litre and there were fuel blockades etc.

So, if fuel prices have gone up 40% in 10 years, that (in very simple maths terms) is 4% per year. That’s not a lot.

OK, maybe it’s 40% in 8 years, or 9 years, but it is still only 5% or 6% per year. This is hardly a massive increase.

Although we have 4 cars in the family, and I have changed my cars to have fuel efficient cars (easy on my car scheme), I would say that there is still a big margin until fuel prices are “too high”. Fuel’s expensive, but not too expensive (yet).

make the polluter pay.

And whats your stance on Mass produced Meat, Farm animals.
TJ ?.
😉

An intelligently designed road pricing system gives people the best of all worlds.

Ain’t going to happen in this country then.

Ain’t going to happen in this country then.

😆

exactly zokes. Increase tax on petrol abolish VED. make the polluter pay.

That’s what I said ^^ but it needs tying into a better and more comprehensive system to make it work properly.

As an initial step though, it’s a start – gets the motoring press and public a bit more onside.

I can’t see that working wors. Where in your fevered little imagination dig you dig that vision of insanity from?

Gawd knows, must have had too much cheese last night and dreamt a strange dream.

Fuel duty does part of it, but not the time/location part.

Course it does, choose to travel in the rush hour and you’ll use more fuel and pay more tax. 🙄

Fuel tax is unavoidable, directly related to what you drive, how you drive and where you go at what time. There’s already a good system for collecting it.

Road pricing is arbitrary, would be prohibitively expensive and difficult to properly enforce. Money spent on road pricing schemes would be better diverted into public transport, cycleways and subsidy / development of greener transport technologies.

They already do, you can claim the VAT back, so business petrol is 20% cheeper.

[vat pedant] claiming back the vat makes fuel 16.66667% cheaper [/vat pedant] 🙂

large418 – Member
10 years or so ago fuel prices went over the £1 per litre and there were fuel blockades etc.

So, if fuel prices have gone up 40% in 10 years, that (in very simple maths terms) is 4% per year. That’s not a lot.

OK, maybe it’s 40% in 8 years, or 9 years, but it is still only 5% or 6% per year. This is hardly a massive increase.

Although we have 4 cars in the family, and I have changed my cars to have fuel efficient cars (easy on my car scheme), I would say that there is still a big margin until fuel prices are “too high”. Fuel’s expensive, but not too expensive (yet).

Something costing £1 in 2000 would cost £1.39 in 2011 just through inflation.

I see a future where there will be butchers, grocers, hardware shops etc on the local main rd, people will work close by their homes and walk to work. There will be a community spirit as people will have time to chat to their neighbours on the walk to work or down the shops

Hooray for the great human short-sightedness!

Progress has been so successful that things were actually better the way they used to be in the 70’s.

We’ve raped the Earth’s natural resources just to end up wishing we were back where we started.

Humans. How stupid are they.

😈

Solo – Member

These threads always turn out the same.

The Do-Gooders, who have set themselves up to work local.

.
.
.

Never ceases to amaze me at how quick folk are to have a go at something, which they do not participate in themselves.

I’m amazed you’re amazed, since you’re doing it yourself in the first line of your post 🙄

My bus pass costs have gone down about 13% this month 😆

An intelligently designed road pricing system

Hmmmm. That would be one not designed by humans then?

exactly zokes. Increase tax on petrol abolish VED. make the polluter pay.

That’s what I said ^^ but it needs tying into a better and more comprehensive system to make it work properly.

As an initial step though, it’s a start – gets the motoring press and public a bit more onside.

Luv this.
STW anti carists in double standards shocker !.

Its alright to make car based polluters pay.

While its still ok to subsidize meat production which contributes more Environmental damage.
Surely if your rule of thumb is making the polluter pay, then we should be seeing the price of meat increasing ?.

You guys are unreal.

TandemJeremy – Member
Increase tax on petrol abolish VED.

That’ll never happen because then the motorists won’t be able to use anti-cycle argument of “you don’t even pay road tax”

😀

crazy-legs – Member
We need to get out of this 9-5 grind, be a bit more flexible in how we work, when we journey and how we do it.

I agree with this. I asked at work about coming in early & leaving early to avoid traffic at both ends of the day. It was more fuel efficient as I wasn’t having to wait at the usual bottlenecks, I would be saving at least 15 mins each way on my commute and it made no difference to my ability to get my work done.

I was told point blank that your hours are 9-5 and you signed the contract that states that. Tough.
Thing is, I tried it for a week before asking (to see if it actually helped) and I was getting in a lot earlier and not leaving that much earlier, so I was probably doing 30 mins more unpaid work/day than I had been doing.

My bus pass costs have gone down about 13% this month

Or to put it another way.
Your burden upon the rest of us has just been increased.
Thanks !.
Nothing like carrying the public transport parasites.
Buses where I use to live, were allowed to run one Euro emissions generation older engines than private vehicles.
So, while sitting on your bus, just spare a thought for me, paying for your seat, while your bus chuggs along polluting, on subsidies.
🙂

I do spare a thought for you. I’m doing it now, see?
😆 😆 😆

I do spare a thought for you. I’m doing it now, see?
😆

Oh yeah, I can see that.
You, the giggling fool.

But still, I’m happier making my way through the world without receiving any charity.

So, laugh to your hearts’ content.
I’ll allow you that small pleasure, those whos minds are easily/simply amused.

😉

Or to put it another way.
Your burden upon the rest of us has just been increased.
Thanks !.
Nothing like carrying the public transport parasites.

Most bus services are run by private companies on a profit-making basis. So you could not be more wrong. You could try to be more wrong, but you would be unsuccessful.

Never ceases to amaze me at how quick folk are to have a go at something, which they do not participate in themselves.

It’s probably beyond your limited imagination, but have you ever considered that some of us have participated in long-distance commuting in the past, but decided to change our lives rather than whinging about the price of fuel on here?