Fuel Price Petition

quote:

Originally posted by Bruce Woodhouse:
Put aside global concerns if you want, our roads (and lungs) are clogged right now. We've grown up to consider road travel as a right, as essential to daily life, and we've generally seen the cost of motoring drift down and down.

Driving is a luxury. It is about time societies and individuals came up with practical solutions (and acted on them) to cut down motoring volumes; from different working practices, to the design of communities let alone encouraging people to not be so darn lazy!

Costs rising are the only thing that will make people change, twas ever thus. Look at the link between rising cigarette prices and population smoking incidence. We are facing rising oil prices in the medium term, some short term fiddling by government may ease the pain for a short while but will not buck that trend.

By the way, how would you prefer the Exchequer to raise the lost tax?

Bruce

I agree 100%

folk have become complacent about their "rights" to maintain their current lifestyle. Some will have to make difficult choices.


Just looking around at the number of vehicles, many fairly new, and with large engines, it`s hard to swallow the idea that motoring is getting too expensive. Also, judging by the way many people drive, (foot hard down on accelerator or brake) one can only conclude that either there are a lot of idiots driving , or else they don`t really care that much about their fuel consumption

laurie

quote:

Originally posted by 555:

quote:

Perhaps you should actively encourage your offspring or offspring's offspring from not breeding.

At least you will then not be worried about the nth generation of your dynasty suffering from excessive heat, lack of oxygen and food and water.

If you want I can put in a larger font

I'm worried about the future of the planet,
due to the damage we are doing to the environment.

About my children (limited to two) & their (possible) children - my point was it seems to me most people don't think beyond the cost of the next vehicle fuel top-up, let alone how their actions will affect the next 10, 100 or 1000 years.

If you would do as I want please engage your brain Derek.

We start from totally different positions, so I won't even go there. I do believe in climate change, the extent to which it can be influenced I am a lot less clear about. After all, the planet has been too hot - and had an ice age, without help from Man. No doubt some of this will become clearer.

In the meantime, I don't and never have, been in favour of wasting resources by making journeys that I don't need to, buying things I don't need etc. etc. I would think it incredibly arrogant to believe that the majority of people somehow did think that way.

Whatever. The governments have seen the potential of this bandwagon in a spectacular way. They see it primarily as an opportunity to raise tax and withdraw services. Suddenly, it has become quite acceptable for people you already pay high amounts of council tax to start choosing what they do? Christ. Whatever happened to the fact that their jobs were created to provide services.

555,

What size should the State be allowed to get? I'm still unclear where you are on this. You seem happy that as long as some tenuous link can be made - the sky is the limit. Fortunately, the electorate will get a say eventually.

Any government or local authority that was serious about changing people's habits and improving the environment would be building local amenities, refusing out of town supermarket plans, widening the availability of public transport. They would also be putting limits on the amount of "take" from windfall fuel price increases.

But they are not. Why? Because they have overspent to such a horrendous extent that they need this extra revenue - not for green initiatives, but to fund the out of control public sector. Final salary pensions, huge sickness rates and early retirement programmes - all funded by us.

If you disagree, fine. But that is my position and that of many others who watch with amazement as the public sector is once again protected from commercial reality.

Steve

quote:

I would think it incredibly arrogant to believe that the majority of people somehow did think that way.

I think things are changing, but look at how citizens of 'developed' countries have happily lived a disposable commodity lifestyle since the 1950's - IMO that is how the majority has lived.

Poor service from local or central gov is not directly connected to environmental issues.
But for clarity I'm fiercely suspicious of national level politicians;
IME they are almost all self-serving hypocrites.
Local politicians are better IME.
Size of gov is also a separate issue,
but IMHO the less centralised & more efficient the gov the better.

quote:

Fortunately, the electorate will get a say eventually.

The problem is regularly having our say we are in this mess!

I know it's not easy to stomach fuel prices;
you may think it's tough down south, but diesel is 150p/litre where I live.
A year ago a 50kg bag of coal (no mains gas here) cost £9.20 - now it's £17.50
There's much to be said for a tax differential in vehicle fuel,
so those in rural areas & who don't have a public transport option pay less.

quote:

Any government or local authority that was serious about changing people's habits and improving the environment would be building local amenities, refusing out of town supermarket plans, widening the availability of public transport. They would also be putting limits on the amount of "take" from windfall fuel price increases.

I think this is happening, but in a patchy manner.
Sorry for the cliche, but it's a chicken & egg situation.
It does seem the only way to change folks behavior is by cost or legislation.

quote:

folk have become complacent about their "rights" to maintain their current lifestyle. Some will have to make difficult choices.

For me Laurie has hit the nail on the head.

SteveS1

Your beef with fuel tax seems to be wrapped up in a great ball of anger at the State, and public workers in particular.

The prime reason for rising fuel prices is not rising taxation. Taxation changes will ease the pain of rising global oil prices to a very minor degree, and certainly will not alter the underlying trend.

I have a considerable problem with a whole raft of UK Goverenment policies but blaming them for rising oil costs-and connecting your rising fuel costs to the size of the State and Public Sector spending just seems a connection without basis.

Get angry with the Govt by all means, but they are ultimately not responsible for the cost of oil.

Bruce

quote:

Originally posted by 555:
Were you unwell when your maths class covered statistics ROTF?
Just a wild guess!

Holy Rothamsted 555.

I use to teach statistics - Baysian Probability Theory, Principal Component Analysis, Multivariate Analysis and non-Parametric methods - it was a really mean class. Talking of busses, queuing theory was a favourite of mine.

Anyways, I think I'll invert a matrix or two just to see if the old skills have deserted me.

Or, as the great Steve Gibbons, once sung

you can do what you like in the queue
but there's no spitting on the bus.

ATB Rotf

BTW Why does the guy who is obviously dying with some highly contagious disease always want to sit next to me? I don't like public transport very much - park n ride is OK.

quote:

Your beef with fuel tax seems to be ...

Hi Bruce, my main beef with fuel tax is I have to pay it.

My main beef with tax in general is the local authorities and Government collect large amounts of it, but never seem to do anything for anybody but themselves - not directed at the workers, but the ones that run things.

Guido Fawkes, now there was a guy who tried to do some good in parliament.

ATB Rotf

quote:

Originally posted by Steve S1:
Quite right.

Various governments spend years running down public transport, closing railway lines and encouraging road use and then wishes to pretend none of that happened?
Steve

Various Conservative governments... Macmillan and Thatcher being the two chief culprits in post-war history.

Two points - 1) everyone knows that this year's 30% rise in fuel costs is entirely down to the greed of the oil companies and the politics of the oil producing nations in the Middle East. Whatever else you can accuse it of, our current govt hasn't raised fuel duty in the last year.

2) There has been a noticeable reduction very recently in vehicle use. Environmentally this must be a good thing. How people then adjust this into their car-centred lives is... kind of their problem. People moved to the countryside because they knew they could rely on their cars. Now they can't. Therefore....

quote:

Whatever else you can accuse it of, our current govt hasn't raised fuel duty in the last year.

They haven't reduced it either - they collect more and more and do less and less for it.

As Alice Copper, who nearly got Elected, once said

I need a house boat and I need a plane
I need a butler and a trip to Spain
I need everything the world owes me
I tell it to myself and I agree

Nice warm weather we're having - wonder how long it will last. Good thing about it getting warmer is we don't have to burn so much fuel to keep warm.

ATB Rotf

quote:

Originally posted by Bruce Woodhouse:
Put aside global concerns if you want, our roads (and lungs) are clogged right now. We've grown up to consider road travel as a right, as essential to daily life, and we've generally seen the cost of motoring drift down and down.

Driving is a luxury. It is about time societies and individuals came up with practical solutions (and acted on them) to cut down motoring volumes; from different working practices, to the design of communities let alone encouraging people to not be so darn lazy!

Costs rising are the only thing that will make people change, twas ever thus. Look at the link between rising cigarette prices and population smoking incidence. We are facing rising oil prices in the medium term, some short term fiddling by government may ease the pain for a short while but will not buck that trend.

By the way, how would you prefer the Exchequer to raise the lost tax?

Bruce

This seems to be wholly based upon car transport as recreation, but in the real world where people need to get around for business, it's a cost that will be passed onto the customer. Fine in central London to use the underground, and daft not to unless transporting heavy equipment, but elsewhere, relying on a non-existent bus service or train service, it isn't going to work. Rather than the government forcing people off the roads, they should provide an alternative that encourages people to WANT to leave the car at home. Without a viable alternative, increased costs will have to be passed onto clients.
If I can make two visits in one day to clients rather than my usual four or six, then I'm afraid that my bill to my customers will double. It's as simple as that. You obviously are fine with that.

Now, if you are talking about recreation, as you seem to be, then that's another matter maybe, but we still need an alternative and this country is far far behind most other countries in providing cheap to use public transport. I thought the government had identified that leaving kids in front of the TV all day, or unattended to hang around on street corners wasn't such a good thing, and getting them out to visit places at weekends was probably to be encouraged - but they obviously have changed their minds. Better to not encourage anyone to leave the house unless absolutely necessary, eh? Better get another PlayStation for them instead.

I was suckered into believing that we should go to war over WMD and being wiped out with 45 minutes warning. I'm less gullible now to believe this bullshit being loaded n us in the name of global warming. I agree we have to cut oil consumption and numbers of cars, but it isn't the tip of the iceberg when considering the problem a as whole and we would be better spending our time aiding developing countries to expand responsibly without coal fired power stations. The UK motorist is sick of being made out to be the worlds whipping-boy over the whole global warming issue and it's about time we dug our heels in. Businesses will grind to a halt over this and we haven't even begun to see the economic effects of many going into liquidation. Is that good for the economy? Is that going to help? Isn't isn't smart to put half a million on the dole when gas prices are set to increase by 43% next year, because the welfare purse will go into meltdown.

I wish the world was as twee as Bruce's argument about whether it's better to be Big Ears on his bicycle or Noddy in his car to go see Pink Cat for tea, but we have a very serious economic problem here and I for one can see this as a kick-start to a very serious economic recession and unemployment, brought about by our very own government who haven't the mental capacity to think things through properly. Get public transport in place first, and THEN make cars effectively illegal, but don't make the whole country grind to a halt by doing it the other way around.

quote:

Originally posted by 555:

I do think many people don't give enough thought to where live in relationship to where they work, how secure their job is, reliance on modes of transport, etc.

I've had 4 employers in 10 years, and I've never once changed job. Yes, I've been bought and sold 3 times. I chose where I live with respect to where my employer is and where I worked. The site where I work has been changed 5 times in the last 10 years. Then there's where my wife works to factor in.

Luckily for me, there's good public transport where I live, but for the 1st time in 18 years I chose to buy a car because using public transport doubles my travel time to 3 hours a day. Which is too much.

More and more people work as "temps", that is they work for one company, but subcontracted to another and the assignments vary, so you never know where you are going to work!

Otoh, my car averages about 4.5l/100km travelled. Roughly 7€ in fuel costs per 100Kms.

regards

peter

quote:

Originally posted by User34:
Luckily for me, there's good public transport where I live,

So you're not in the UK then

What is interesting is that the richer you are the more you proselytise about restraint.

quote:

Originally posted by ROTF:

quote:

Whatever else you can accuse it of, our current govt hasn't raised fuel duty in the last year.

They haven't reduced it either - they collect more and more and do less and less for it.

ATB Rotf

But assuming Dave Cameron can be trusted, he would have to keep his pledges on the environment - which would mean at the very least maintaining the current level of fuel duty?

I had a pleasant and unavoidable drive down to Devon over the weekend, and decided on the way back to drive as economically as possible, slipstreaming trucks at 60mph. I reckon I halved the fuel consumption I would have got through (in a car that anyway averages 54mpg) had I driven like I used to - and like pretty much every other driver on the M5 was - 10 mph over the limit and overtaking everything possible.

I arrived back feeling relaxed, as if the journey had taken no time at all, despite the extra 30 minutes.

quote:

Originally posted by 555:
Driving is an unnecessary luxury if you live in a town or city.

Something I already said!

quote:

Originally posted by djftw:
People who live and work in a major city have no excuse really

quote:

Originally posted by 555:
If you choose to live in the country, well that's your choice.

Actually I'm not sure it is for a lot of people, the difference in cost of housing/rent is insane. The money that buys a three bedroom house in rural Aberdeenshire would struggle to buy a bedsit in Aberdeen.

quote:

Originally posted by 555:
On average a bus carries the same number of people as 30 cars in one-tenth of the road space, because average car occupancy is 1.6 persons.
To claim buses are more damaging to the environment than cars is simply not true.

My point was that busses serving small villages with small populations wouldn't necesarily be any better than a good car share scheme. I have never been on a bus with your alleged average of 48 people on it outside of a major city. If you are going to run a bus service to small hamlets that is regular enough for it to present a viable alternative to personal transport then you have to accept that a lot of the time buses will be running with very few people on them. I do not believe that this would be sensible, economically viable, or necesarily any more environmentally friendly.

Lets take your figure of 1406g/km divide that by the rather dubious claim that the average bus contains 48 people, that is 29.29g/km per passenger as opposed to my car with five people in doing 27.6g/km per passenger, personally I'm thinking the car pool is the better option for small communities.

quote:

folk have become complacent about their "rights" to maintain their current lifestyle.

Perhaps, but I think many people, myself included see their current lifestyle as worth defending. That isn't to say that we do nothing about the environment etc. etc. but by applying human intelligence and ingenuity to the problem, rather than reversing every technological advancement and stripping away every personal freedom, which seems to be the aim of the green movement. I think Jeremy Clarkson was bang on when he said of the green movement's dismay about the new generation of nuclear power stations, "some people won't be happy until we are all eating leaves under a hammer and sickle".

quote:

Originally posted by Nigel Cavendish:
What is interesting is that the richer you are the more you proselytise about restraint.

(Come on Nigel, contribute to the debate rather than making comments (again) about what you perceive people earn)

Some people seem to think I'm advocating high fuel prices as a sort of green 'punishment' for pollution. I'm not. The big looming worry about energy prices is winter heating costs-and that is where I think the taxation system (or investement in efficient hosuing etc) needs a careful look to protect the vulnerable.

What I keep saying is that proposed fuel taxation changes are a pimple on the swelling abcess of oil prices. These will rise in the short term for a variety of reasons, and the long term trend is not so rosy either. We have to change at a personal, local and national level. People tend to change when it hurts their pocket, politicians tend to change when it hurts their vote.

We need to make our government provide alternatives, incentives etc but reducing a few pence on fuel will just be a token, and the benefit will have be minimal.

Bruce

quote:

Originally posted by Bruce Woodhouse:


We need to make our government provide alternatives, incentives etc but reducing a few pence on fuel will just be a token, and the benefit will have be minimal.

Bruce

Sorry Bruce, but at 80p/litre for fuel not that long ago, the government took 80% or 64p. At the current 130p/litre they're getting 104p or over 66% more! By taking the 64p, not 104p, the 40p/litre off would save me £22 on a tankful. That's not a pimple, it's a great big boil!

quote:

Originally posted by Bruce Woodhouse:
SteveS1

Your beef with fuel tax seems to be wrapped up in a great ball of anger at the State, and public workers in particular.

The prime reason for rising fuel prices is not rising taxation. Taxation changes will ease the pain of rising global oil prices to a very minor degree, and certainly will not alter the underlying trend.

I have a considerable problem with a whole raft of UK Goverenment policies but blaming them for rising oil costs-and connecting your rising fuel costs to the size of the State and Public Sector spending just seems a connection without basis.

Get angry with the Govt by all means, but they are ultimately not responsible for the cost of oil.

Bruce

Bruce,

Taxes masquerading as "green initiatives", together with the windfall fuel taxes caused largely by price speculators. They are helping this government cover one of the singularly biggest public sector spending deficits ever.

The they wring their hands and point to "global" economic conditions. It's rubbish - just like the stuff that they no longer wish to collect from your bin.

It's the high cost of fuel being seen as somehow a good thing ('cos it's green you know) that particuarly annoys. Together with the profiteering.

Presumably, when enough land has been given over to bio-fuels and lavender bushes - the resultant food shortages will teach us not to need so much of that either.

Jagster has the maths in perspective.

Steve

quote:

Originally posted by Steve S1:

quote:

Originally posted by Bruce Woodhouse:
SteveS1

Your beef with fuel tax seems to be wrapped up in a great ball of anger at the State, and public workers in particular.

The prime reason for rising fuel prices is not rising taxation. Taxation changes will ease the pain of rising global oil prices to a very minor degree, and certainly will not alter the underlying trend.

I have a considerable problem with a whole raft of UK Goverenment policies but blaming them for rising oil costs-and connecting your rising fuel costs to the size of the State and Public Sector spending just seems a connection without basis.

Get angry with the Govt by all means, but they are ultimately not responsible for the cost of oil.

Bruce

It's the high cost of fuel being seen as somehow a good thing ('cos it's green you know) that particuarly annoys....

Steve

...er read my last post. I specifically said I did not think the high cost of fuel is a good thing. I just think it is more or less inevitable.

Bruce

quote:

Originally posted by Bruce Woodhouse:


...er read my last post. I specifically said I did not think the high cost of fuel is a good thing. I just think it is more or less inevitable.

Bruce

Sorry, Bruce. I didn't mean that YOU did. Hence the general term. But there are others, particularly in the meeja, who do.

Steve

Cheers Steve

I think I've laid out my thoughts enough and will quit this thread, thinking people are having a pot at you is usually a sign to leave a debate like this!

Bruce

Me too. The Shell drivers are going on strike for four days. Gordon Brown has said that we shouldn't panic buy - so I'm off to the garage.

That was a joke everyone (that last bit)...just in case.

Toodle pip.

Steve

Ironically, a friend of mine is having a new road bike built for him, being an obsessive cyclist, but he's been told by the bike builder that due to staggering increased costs in transport and materials due to fuel costs, the price has doubled.
You just can't win

quote:

You just can't win

Yes that says it in a nutshell.

It's all bit like supporting the Tractor Boys when Clive Thomas was the ref.

quote:

... we have a very serious economic problem here ...

That is true Ewan, but the cost of trashing the environment is going to be much greater.

quote:

What is interesting is that the richer you are the more you proselytise about restraint.

Careful you don't crush a testicle on that fence Nigel.

quote:

555: If you choose to live in the country, well that's your choice.

djftw: Actually I'm not sure it is for a lot of people, the difference in cost of housing/rent is insane. The money that buys a three bedroom house in rural Aberdeenshire would struggle to buy a bedsit in Aberdeen.

We all have choices Dom, although perhaps not the choices we would ideally wish for.

Ironic you mention the expense of living in Aberdeen. It is very expensive place to live, because it is a boom town due to your mates in the oil industry!

quote:

I think many people, myself included see their current lifestyle as worth defending.

There are many people that think the environment needs defending from your lifestyle.

quote:

Lets take your figure of 1406g/km divide that by the rather dubious claim that the average bus contains 48 people, that is 29.29g/km per passenger as opposed to my car with five people in doing 27.6g/km per passenger, personally I'm thinking the car pool is the better option for small communities..

We could take those figures, but how often do you have five people in your car,
& what effect would that have on your CO2 g/km output?
BTW car share schemes are excellent & sorry if I suggested otherwise.
However suggesting a car is less damaging to the enviroment then a bus is simply not true.

quote:

reversing every technological advancement and stripping away every personal freedom, which seems to be the aim of the green movement.

If you really think that you don't know what you are talking about.

Also ironic this same 'green movement' predicted the climate & transport problems we now have when the UK gov trashed the railways & buses.

quote:

I think Jeremy Clarkson was bang on

I've worked with JC a few times. He's not the environmental hooligan you see on T.V. - that's just his showbiz facade. In real life he's just an ordinary idiot. Well you'd have to be to publish your bank A/C & other personal details in a national newspaper to prove identity theft isn't a problem. For those that don't know he did have money stolen from his A/C as a result.

If you really think JC is bang on you need to give this subject more thought.
IMHO obviously.

quote:

but how often do you have five people in your car

Far more often than I've been on a bus with 48+ people on it, I have even been know to borrow my parents Touran in order to be able to seat 7 from time to time to avoid taking two cars. The last time I walked into town and used a bus round here there was me, my girlfriend, an old lady and the driver on it for the whole 15 mile journey, hence why I think there is an argument for a well organised car share scheme over a bus service in a lot of rural areas. I can think of routes round here where you could drive a bus 20 miles and you wouldn't pass 48 dwellings, nevermind get 48 people to board at a given time. You can't tell me a bus with three people on it is better for the environment than a car with three people in it!