April 17, 2008...4:05 pm
How much are you paying for petrol?
Fuel prices are up again – with reports saying one filling station in Chelsea is charging an amazing 134p for a litre of petrol.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has blamed oil producers for not increasing supply, causing oil prices to rise.
But the price can’t purely be blamed on the rocketing prices of crude oil.
In the UK, after including the duty and VAT paid on a litre of fuel, tax makes up more than 60 per cent of the cost.
Car makers are making the vehicles they sell more efficient, but this doesn’t help people who rely on their cars but can’t afford a new, clean machine.
Are these prices tempting you away from your car and onto the bus or mountain bike?Â
So how much are you paying for a litre of diesel or unleaded? And where did you buy it?
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40 Comments
April 28, 2008 at 9:05 pm
Tescos Express Petrol Station in Durrington, Worthing, West Sussex was advertising £1.07p a litre for standard unleaded on their shevron sign, but when you park up to fill up, it states that it is £1.10p a litre.
After speaking/complaining with the sales attendant, he said he knew what they had done but it was “the managers idea”
Totally out of order this is
April 28, 2008 at 9:09 pm
I am paying 106.9p per litre (petrol), from my local independent supermarket!
Its outragous! When I first started driving I was only paying 85.9p per litre!!
April 29, 2008 at 11:34 am
Paying 112.9 at our local garage for Petrol. Its crazy given I remember when petrol was 49.9 back before I started driving.
April 29, 2008 at 12:00 pm
the amount we now pay for petrol and diesel is beyond stealing its just plain money sucking to cover the debts of the government wars……not forgetting the outstanding finance on their Bentleys. problem is people are far too lazy to do anything, prices go up people whine for a while then eventually get used to it. this is just another small example of the falls of our ‘great English empire’…………………………pathetic and crumbling. hope i wont be in this to be deteriorated country in years to come.
April 29, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Diesel at my local BP station, who have just announced making 3.92 billion profit in the first 3 months of this year, has risen from 115.9 on the 7th April 2008 to 122.9 on the 28th April 2008. (I’m not a petrol price researcher, I have just started a new job and this station is en-route!)
Why on earth should the the car driver be penalised fro utilising an essential commodity (the motor vehicle). I live in a small town in Dorset and work in a small village in Wiltshire for a big company (HMPrison Service). There is no alternative way for me to get to work using the ‘political answer to all of our problems’ public transport.
I used to be so proud to be British but just what the hell is the Government doing to this once great, leading country. I pay tax after tax and sometimes I get tax deducted on commodities that I have already paid tax on at source. Gordon Brown and his cabinet need to be held accountable for their actions and start working in the interests of the majority. Sorry, rant over!!
April 29, 2008 at 11:20 pm
Money makes money, what do you except your living in one of the world’s most expensiviest countries?!?! No one is forcing you to buy petrol at such prices, if you collectively agree to do something about it, then something will be done. The fact is the majority of you are all weak individuals who talk big but can’t follow up on your words? Capisce?
April 30, 2008 at 10:27 am
Ahh.. stop your complaining, all of you. Relative to what your weekly wage is, petrol’s cheaper than it’s ever been. If it’s such an isuse, stop buying it. But you wont do that will you? You’ll carry on buying it until you literally cannot afford to drive to work any more. I dont see anyone whining about the price of beer, and at £3.50 a pint (£28 a gallon) its a heck of a lot cheaper than petrol.. I could whine about the good old days when petrol was 60p a litre (11 years ago, when I started driving), but I earn 10 times more per week than I did then, and it’s only doubled in price. I’m quids in!
“The price of petrol is stealing” - hah, yeah right.. Where do you think money comes from? The government print it, they let you have it for a time because you think it’s important, but they want it back. It’s not stealing, it’s taxation. As Kayc Jones says, noone is forcing you to buy it, so go and bleed somewhere else. Move closer to work, buy a bicycle for less than the cost of 1 years finance on your precious vanity-necessity BMW X5 that you cant afford to run because you lied about your earnings in order to get the drip, and get a healthier outlook on life. If might even stop you complaining like a 4 year old who had his dummy taken off him.
“Vanity - my favourite sin” - Devils Advocate
April 30, 2008 at 10:29 am
PS; Omar, you’ll want to be in this country when the rest of the world runs out of oil and Britain still has the massive reserves untouched under the Falklands, cause then we’ll be stinging the countries that forced us to buy oil at $high per barrel..
April 30, 2008 at 10:34 am
Correction:
“beer … is a heck of a lot cheaper than petrol” should read “beer … is a heck of a lot dearer than petrol”
Apols for any confusion
April 30, 2008 at 11:05 am
the fuel here in north yorkshire is reaching 119.9p per litre for diesel and i saw a service station selling it for 123.9 the other day it is ridiculous and me as a college student who travels to and from college each day can bareley afford fuel to get to and from college.
April 30, 2008 at 2:01 pm
why is it supermarket filling stations charge differntly depending on location, surley this is bought at a corporate level. I have seen two Tesco garages with 3p differnce.
April 30, 2008 at 2:35 pm
I’ve got to say I’m with Matt on this. I only started driving in 2005 when, if I recall correctly, petrol was about 75p a litre. I now drive a bigger and more powerful car that’s fairly thirsty (20-25mpg on a good day) 40 miles each way for work and have more spare money than I’ve ever had.
Okay so petrol prices have risen considerably over the past 12-18months but pound-for-pound my pay has increased significantly more.
If you don’t like it catch a bus, get a more economical car or get a more local job, simple as that.
With regards to tax why not just buy a car that was registered prior to March 2001 where it’s still at the big engine/small engine rate?
April 30, 2008 at 2:44 pm
i agree petrol is going up and up and slowly we;ll get to a stage where we will start protesting again and believe you me this time will be alot worser big lorrys have had enough and something will be done about it soon!!!
April 30, 2008 at 3:30 pm
long story Matt many more reasons behind all of this but that’s another website and another story, but if you think that the western world will not be on its knees in years to come then yo are incredibly naive.
April 30, 2008 at 3:50 pm
…
http://www.teslamotors.com/
Sorry, I cant help being smug about this. Enjoy your petrol, I’ll enjoy my solar array in 2009.
April 30, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Let’s face it; the rising taxes on the motorist have nothing at all to do with the environment… it’s simply a way for the Labour government to make more money after they’ve spent the last 11 years wasting it.
April 30, 2008 at 7:08 pm
LOL at matt! I dont think the people compalaining are those with X5’s and other such large cars, which by the way commonly achieve in excess of 30mpg in diesel form and seat 7 people.
The people complaining are the individuals who purchased cars such as the 2.0 vauxhall Zafira who now pay £440 a year or the larger estate mondeos etc, hrdly gas guzzlers really and certainly were not considered as such when people purchased them lagitimatly several years ago.
PS Matt, i cycle to work, live less than 10miles from my job but people should have a choice!!!
April 30, 2008 at 7:44 pm
I don’t have a problem with petrol prices being high. I do however have a problem with being lied to.
Fuel duty and road fund licensing have nothing to do with climate change or any other ecological issue. If the CO2 output of my car is the problem then taxing more powerful cars more isn’t going to resolve the issue. I could own a BMW M3 and only drive a couple of thousand miles a year or i could own a Citroen C1 and drive 40,000 miles a year. I could easily push out more CO2’s from a smaller engined car than a bigger engined one.
If this has anything to do with fuel economy then they should scrap road fund licensing and put all the tax on fuel. But it has nothing to do with that.
April 30, 2008 at 10:19 pm
Where is the money going to come from to pay all the pen pushing civil servants?? Tesco pumps!!! Hey all you truckers just keep the wheels rolling and the tax rolling into scumbag Darlings coffers. Over 55 years of age and a lazy retired civil baron well done, 80k in your hand. Thats why your all paying 1.20 ltr.
May 1, 2008 at 9:52 am
Hi everyone, well I am paying about 117.9 for Shell V-Power, I would rather it stayed around the £1 mark, but its only gonna keep increasing! I think we should all stop worrying about petrol prices, and start thinking of ways to make money!
May 1, 2008 at 10:01 am
Omar.. Personally, I cant wait for the fuel crisis to come and people are forced to change their attitudes. I already started, voluntarily and it’s odd just how much I *dont* use the car now.. If I want to go to the shops, work, gym, socialising.. I dont even think to use the car because it’s such a faff to get in and out of the garage
Wazzy.. People wont protest because people are sheep. The biggest vote for change will never arrive because the government is very clever about achieving its goals while annoying only a small amount of the population at once. The majority will roll over and take it. By gradually upping the price, they progressively force people off the road and gradually change habits. If they suddenly just put the price of fuel to be equal to beer (£5 a litre) you’d have a massive outcry because everyone would be irritated and then protests would be done and would succeed.
You get the same with speed trapping devices, causing a lot of bad feeling toward the system amongst a lot of people. There is call for change but it wont happen because the majority is not interested in standing up and being counted. If everyone ignored the letters and hence ended up in court, the court system wouldnt be able to cope with the massive number of cases and a rethink would be required, hopefully one that didnt patronise the motorist so much. How can you organise that? How can you convince an entire population to return-to-sender a prosecution letter marked with “Sorry, I refuse to participate in your mass-persecution”
You can’t, because people are terrified of the ramifications. People buy petrol without protest for the same reasons they accept speeding fines without protest; “bad things happen if I dont”
OK, I’m getting off topic. Fear and apathy grip this country everywhere. People will carry on buying “expensive” petrol, getting done for 31 in a 30, standing in long airport security queues having their hairpins confiscated and paying 25% more for their groceries than 10 years ago. The largest amount of protest you’ll see to it is whining on the Internet because they perceive that they have freedom of speech there.
In classic supply and demand, the rising population compete for diminishing resources. More demand, less supply, price goes up. Get used to it..
It’s funny, but when you start thinking about every problem humanity faces, the root cause can be traced back to the simple fact that there are just too many people on the planet.
May 1, 2008 at 10:33 am
Wobbletastic.. “way for [the govt] to make more money” - eh? The only way the government “makes money” is to pop along to the Bank of England and ask them to print some more. You think that money in your wallet is yours? Youre never going to manage to keep it; someone is going to have to give it back to the government at some point (tax when you earn, buy, save, die and bequeath..). It’s not yours; dont get so attached to something youre borrowing.
Chrus.. £440 a year for what? Road Fund Licence? Drop in the ocean compared to the cost of fuel plus depreciation for their brand new Vectra or Mondeo. They have the choice of selling it but they dont. What I’m getting across is that people hypocritically complain when they have to pay a lot for the embodiment of their vanity. RFL is a minor inconvenience, a checking fee to see if your documentation is in order.
You say people should have a choice. At the end of the day, people always have a choice. No-one holds a gun to their head and says “live there, drive that car to that job”
If someone lives far from work and has a complaint about the price of the car: Change car! Change house! Change job!
Get a Prius! - oh wait, the cost of depreciation is more than the saving on fuel!
Move house! - oh wait, houses near work are more expensive than the saving on fuel!
Change job! - oh wait, all the local jobs pay far less than the saving on fuel!
If fuel rises, one of these factors will become false, and it’s ok to change.
So the gas guzzling goalpost moved.. So what? People are traditionalists, they resist change, and this is symptomatic of that. It happened. Do you still want that car/house/job? Pay up. Do you want that pint of beer? Pay up. What’s the difference? Why are people complaining about paying for something they (feel they) need, in order to be able to pay for something they (feel they) want? It’s hypocrisy, all down the line. A mate of mine owns a business. If he rebuilds an engine for someone and it takes 3 hours, he charges them £100. They pull their face at the “high cost” but then happily spend £50 on a “works factory rally sticker kit” - What? Their engine wouldnt even run without the “ripoff” £100 work, but £50 is ok for some pretty stickers (All on one A3 sheet of backing). They need the running engine, they want the stickers. Why do people demand that something they need has to be dirt cheap, but it’s OK for something they want, to be expensive?
Dave.. Amen, but in “A Few Good Men” style.. do you really think the populace can handle the truth? Nah.. They dont think about it as much as you do, so it’s okay to pull the wool and the government will always do that because it never has not done that. Scrapping RFL wont happen because it’s a good point to check that the car is MOTd and insured. The £150+ it costs probably just about covers the processing of it, but it’s such a small part of the cost of a car (I used to spend £80 a week on fuel.. 2 weeks fuel = 1 years road tax; who cares about the road tax?) it’s not worth bothering about.
Jas.. I think you’d pretty rapidly change your nonsensical “it’s the truckers fault” argument if you went to Tesco and found the shelves empty. How do you think the food you eat, gets to the shop you buy it from?
May 1, 2008 at 3:02 pm
To Matt and Adam
I can’t be bothered to argue the many points that are on debate here but only to point out a flaw in one of your reasons…
you both say that fuel is cheap now because you both earn 10 times as much money compared to the doubleing in fuel cost over the same period. This may be true for you two however this is not a valid arguement for the whole population because I would bet money that your pay increases are due to skills and promotion, not inflation that would affect EVERY worker. In reality I think you will find that the fuel price rise has out paced inflation and therfore as a percentage of most peoples wages it does cost more.
sorry to burst your little ranting bubble. lol
May 1, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Lets get to the nitty gritty here. The government see the motorist as an easy target to make money. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking petrol prices, road tax, speed cameras or those silly camera vans. They are the problem, not the oil companies. The oil companies, like any good business, just want to make a profit.
There are 158.99 litres in a barrell of oil. It costs approx $110 (£55.75) a barrell at the moment. That’s 35p per litre. If the government are taking 60% of the price of a litre that means that the oil companies profit margin is very small compared to the amount the government is making.
Say, for example, 20million drivers in Britain put £50 of fuel in their car every week. The governments intake from that is, £30 per car, £600 million per week and a whopping £31.2 billion per year. That’s more that what the Scotish government get from Westminster..!!!
Now i don’t mind paying a fair price for petrol/diesel and realise that oil companies have to make a profit and the government have to make some money too but when they start being greedy (which they are) and giving the poor excuse that cars/lorries etc are having an effect on the environment as justification for their taxation, yet i do not see them doing anything to reduce these effects, other than price us off the road, it is time to say enough is enough.
Matt…As for what you said about people and what “they need” and what “they want” i would suggest fuel, whether it be petrol/diesel/LPG, has become a “need”. Have you seen the state of the public transport system?? People stuffed like sardines into ancient buses and trains that are regularly running late, are not running due to mechanical failure or the driver failing to turn up and, after 6pm, only run once an hour. Come on..!! Until public transport can take you anywhere at anytime and get you where you want on time, safely(do you class being squished into a bus or train safe? What happens to you if it crashes?) and with a little bit of comfort (i.e. being able to sit down) i’ll stick with my car or better still motorbike.
Maybe the government, if they are trying legitamately to get everyone onto public transport, should act, not just talk, by buying back the train and bus system with the revenue they are getting from petrol, car tax etc and provide a service that the public will actually use. Whilst they’re at it they could also get freight, being transported long distances on roads, off the roads and back onto the railways. That would generate revenue for them, cut down on the emissions caused by lorries and also cut the cost of repairing roads previously damaged by lorries.
Ultimately though, these solutions will not reduce the price of petrol/diesel until people stop buying fuel, hitting all parties where it hurts them the most, their profits, forcing the government to bring the price down to a reasonable level, say 65p per litre.
May 1, 2008 at 8:00 pm
Matt, you are totally missing the point. This is not just a tax on brand new X5’s. Its not even a tax on New mondeos this has been applied to cars as early as 2001! 7 year old Zafiras, 7 year old mondeo estates etc etc. Cars often worth 2-3K. I know, im in that boat!
£440 is a lot of money, it is to me anyway. And whats worse is that i cycle to work and put no miles on the car . What is lickly to happen is that all these older cars are simply scrapped.
And Matt, i am on a training wage (although able to purchase my first house £225,000). In a few years time yes, i will have more money and will prob buy something like a rangie. Is that what you advocate, the rich are OK but commoners like me are not…..
May 1, 2008 at 8:05 pm
hi, all over the world prices are rising and it’s not just petrol everythings gone up i think we should use bikes which are better for the environment and for our own health.
May 1, 2008 at 9:17 pm
sounds like matt works for the government as petrol is through the roof our wages may be more but fuel morgages gas food everthing is up in tax which makes our wage not as good as before really i make a good wage and im struggling with my morgage let along petrol and car tax and im on a grand a week plus had to sell my new evo through all this as i refuse to pay it
May 7, 2008 at 1:13 am
what the hell this goverment doing to people in this country, do they think we are all made of money, we are all robots, now you see the reason they put through the terror legislations through, people can dream about doing protests, why do you think the truckers are scared to come out now, these bills were only put through for these particular reasons, they didnt want the same fuel protest going off ever again, they have been playing people turn by turn, smokers, drinkers, fat people etc etc…. they are playing you all separately, putting you all into different categories & groups, go on ban the smokers cuz i dont smoke, go on ban drinkers i dont drink, ban drivers i dont drive i cycle, then there will be your turn, but there will be nobody left to help you cuz you all been played turn by turn, stand up for the rights of the person next to you, so they can in return stand up for you, then all become one, or you all will be played like sheep!!!!
May 7, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Chrus.. No really, I dig what youre getting at, but you dont seem to see that you already took at least a £500 a year punch on the nose in a little old thing called depreciation. Say you buy a 4 year old mondeo for £5000. By the time it’s 5 years old, it’s worth.. £4000? You just got punched on the nose to the tune of £1000 but you didnt complain yet..
2009 rolls around and the staggered increase in duty means your Mondeo costs you £100 more to tax.. All the while depreciation is going on, but it’s curved, so you lets say you only lose £800 as your Mondeo ages from 5 to 6 years old. You lost £200 less, and tax cost £100 more, so overall you have lost less, but youre starting to complain.. Come 2010 when the big fist comes out, depreciation has cost you less, tax has cost you more, overall youre still paying about the same for the privilege of owning a car but youre really whining about it because you can see this big, obvious cost of £430 a year, whereas depreciation is the silent loser.
You may turn round and say “yes, but cars always depreciate, so any increase in tax is a direct increase in the cost of owning and running a car” - and you’d be right. Youre annoyed that the govt is pricing you off the road, and sure I get why youre annoyed, but it’s happening; youre going to have to live with it. There are too many cars in this country and the sooner we can get rid of them, the better. Your final comment made me laugh, as though I deem you some lowlife now, but somehow I’ll deem you to have “made it into the upper classes” when youre driving a gas guzzling status icon even though it’s going to cost a fortune. Do what you wanna do.. Go reach the goal you feel the govt is desperately trying to price you away from reaching, and while youre cycling to work you can think on which low-tax car you want to buy to enjoy the utility of a car.. Decisions decisions! Go for a newish, cheap one whose emissions are so low it will be tax free, but suffer the depreciation, or go for an old one that’s done depreciating and costs a few peanuts to tax and insure?
I do completely agree that more can be done to promote car sharing schemes, cycling to work etc and public transport will never be as good as Singapore (for example) because the country is just too large. That’s a discussion for another place though.
pilko.. If youre on a grand a week and living beyond your means, adjust your means! Chrus is on a training wage (whatever that is) and still bought a house costing quarter of a mil.. What’s yours?
Banks now lend on affordability, so they are supposed to ask you how much you spend on everything, and then mortgage on 70% of your spare cash. Manipulating the figures to get them to lend more is fine while you make that cash, but when things go up and you feel the squeeze, you start to realise that it’s not too bright to overstretch on a major loan like a house. This is kinda wandering off topic though
Omsen.. Sure, I can see how fuel has in some people’s eyes become a need, but also there is none so blind as he who will not see. There is always another way to do something (beyond the basics of eat, drink, sleep) though, and this must be the case because I know people who can remember back to a time when there was maybe one family on their entire street who owned a car. What changed in the interim 40 years that made the car/fuel something that was “needed”? Would you say mobile phones are a need? I dunno about anyone else but I really understand the notion that the government see hooking into people’s “needs” as a fantastic way to get their [the govt's] money back. Remember, they printed it, you have some of it for some time, but you have to give it back, because to walk away with it diminishes the govt’s world standing. Find a need*. Tax it. It’s not unfair; it’s what you decide to subject yourself to by living in a particular country. Vote wih your feet!
Problem for most people gets back to that “what i need should be dirt cheap, and what I want is OK to be expensive” notion.
Rob.. so you think everything should be easy, and cheaply available to all, shared out equally and noone has anything of any worth over another? Isn’t that called Communism? Are you complaining that life’s not fair, because you chose to sit on your haunches and let it accelerate away from you? What about all the things you have that I dont? I’m not sitting here moaning that it’s not fair that you have them and I dont; I dont even know what they are, and if you told me, I cant guarantee I’d be interested. If you want, you make sure you have. It’s what people do. If you want, but you arent capable of making sure you have, did you really want it? Really really?
May 15, 2008 at 1:42 pm
The oil companies aren’t the ones making the money here. The government is. As others have said, with over 60% of the price of fuel being tax, the rest is split between the hauliers/garage/oil company, the real earners are the government.
My local garage went up 2p again this week, and now shows 112.9p per lire of petrol and a ludicrous 124.9p for diesel.
And to all those ’should use public transport then’ fools, have you seen the price and state of it outside our so called glorious capital?? For me to get to work and back would cost me around £7 every day. A bus pass would be £70 every 4 weeks (not monthly, as every 4 weeks would earn them more money). So driving to work is still the cheaper alternative.This would also require catching 2 buses. Public transport prices also rise with fuel costs making it a vicious circle. Having been priced off the roads, I now walk the 10 mile round trip to work every day. Those who say ‘well you should live closer to work’, have you seen house prices??? have your seen the cost of renting a place??? Not everyone live in London or a major city and its about time our ‘glorious leaders’ realised that and stopped living in there own little world.
People would use public transport if it were cheap, reliable, and clean. Sadly it is none of those.
Long has the ‘evil’ motorist been the target of this government and I for one am sick of it. The country is propped up by the motorist. If all motorists around the country stopped driving for 2-3 days in a mass strike this country’s economy would collapse.
May 15, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Matt…I do not see anyone here complaining lifes not fair, but i am getting the opinion that you are a government official put onto this blog in order to gauge peoples opinion about the increase in fuel prices and then trying to justify this governments high taxation by coming out with incompetent statements like, “it’s their money”.
Wake up man..!! The minute you say that you’re just as well saying that everything you’ve bought belongs to the government
The money a person earns is not the governments money…it actually belongs to that person as they have worked hard to earn it..!! Something that the far too numerous freeloading MEP’s, MSP’s and other government officials that we the tax payer are paying for, wouldn’t know about. Yes, the Mint may have produced it and put it into circulation but at the end of the day when a person works hard, which most of us do, the money they earn is theirs, not anyone elses..!! Maybe you would like us to get rid of money all together and go back to bartering, “here i’ll give you five bags of grain for one sheep and a cow”.
Also, we all acknowledge that we need to pay taxes, but we pay them because of the services that are available to all of us in the country i.e. hospitals, dentists, schools, roads, police, fire service, ambulance service, defence services etc etc. and not because the money belongs to the government and they are only “loaning” us the money.
As for the comment about the government’s world standing, what a laugh. The British government has no world standing anymore. What does the British government actually own?? Nothing..!! They sold everything (e.g. oil fields, train services, bus services) they owned years ago for a quick buck and now they’re paying the consequences, or, to be correct British Citizens are paying the consequences.
How are they meant to generate revenue if they have no business to do it? I’ll tell you how, they tax the British citizen to the max and the easiest target is the car driver. Like i said in my previous comment they(Westminster) earn more money from petrol taxation than they give to the Scottish Government, so it begs the question, what do they do with all the other money they generate through taxation?
It’s certainly not all being spent on the services that it should. Our education system is shocking (why are university students having to be taught how to spell and do basic grammar by lecturers?), hospitals are in an appalling state, there’s no such thing as an NHS dentist (if there is they hide them well), our roads are terrible, there are not enough police, nurses, doctors, firemen, paramedics and we are now at the stage where even refuse is only being collected once a fortnight because it costs too much to collect it weekly. What a joke..!!
As for fuel being a need, it most certainly is. What do you think would happen to this country if everyone stopped using fuel? It would come to a grinding halt and the economy would collapse, that’s what..!!
Everything pretty much revolves around the use of fuel, your food getting to the shops, generation of electricity, production of gas, the creation of roads and even down to making simple things like the plastic water bottle that i have no doubt is hanging on the pushbike you use everyday.
Finally, Matt you need to remember we live in a democracy, the benefit of which is that the British voter does not have to “Accept” anything. A new government, one that the majority feels is going to work in their best interests, can be voted in as quick as the last one and from what i can see that’s exactly what’s going to happen. Nae luck Mr Broon..!!!
May 15, 2008 at 7:48 pm
I share a large engined car with my parents so we are doing a bit for the environment by only running the one car. This car is in no way unclean as it is a 2001 Honda Accord. Yet still the government insists on charging £210 a year tax set to rise to £310 next year.
Now if they were interested in looking after the environment then they would see our car sharing and cycling as a bonus to them. Oh wait a minute, now their losing out on an extra £600. So lets tax them more on fuel.
This Summer I am doing something with my college that means I’ll be travelling there everyday car sharing with a group of people. This scheme is run by the government and they say they will pay my travelling costs but not pay if you use a car. This is apparently to promote eco-friendly travel. Due to the location of my home it is easy for me travel by car along the dual carriageway and it takes me 15 mins. If I take public transport it is a journey into the centre of town by train and back out again by bus just to get to my college. Now how is that eco- friendly doing a journey that takes 15 mins where my car is economical, and doing it in two hours on a smoky old train and bus. They are wasting fuel that is already expensive enough.
Overall they are just ripping us off.
May 16, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Just want to say a few words. I agree that wages go up, petrol food etc goes up. Its just life. But to those comments about how petrol is easy to afford when you earn £1000 a week etc, or just change jobs and earn more, please spare a thought for those who dont earn that. I am not whinging or seeking sympathy but my girlfriend is disabled and I am a full time carer for her. Prior to meeting her I earned £20,000 plus a year. I now get £48 from th goverment a week to look after her full time. I run a small 1.4 litre car with about 45-50 mpg average. But the recent soaring of petrol (now 126.9p a litre at our local garage) means just getting her to hospital etc is becoming a major financial planning operation. We dont drink or smoke, and dont even have tv (cant afford tv license or sky). All I ask is remember that we dont all have the luxury of changing jobs or earning £40k a year.
May 18, 2008 at 2:19 am
Im sorry but just to quote the “Get a low emission car as it will be tax exempt”. But in case people didnt know, the only Tax Exempt car which isnt electric (and therefore useless) is the VW Polo Bluemotion. But you’re looking at £12,000 to buy the thing and not to mention its depressingly awful and you’re better off with a 97 Mondeo Ghia X for £1000. Better still, just get on the plane out of the country and leave this country to sink further.
May 19, 2008 at 11:24 pm
Buy any car made before 1973 and there’s no road tax to pay.
May 27, 2008 at 10:08 pm
Simple solution to this… and everything else surrounding the economy doing poorly…
Fuel = Transport
The higher the cost of fuel the higher the cost of transport… lower the cost… more money for people to spend… Economy does better…
It’s hardly rocket science… but then again, we’ve got a Millenium Dome, A massively overbudgetted Wembley Stadium and, of course, a rather expensive war that we never in with a chance of winning… Excellent way to spend our taxes… Round of applause there…
May 28, 2008 at 9:02 pm
I agree with the supposed ‘complainers’ here that the escalating cost of petrol is not just something that affects the big car drivers. I drive a simple 1.3l Ford Ka which used to cost me about £25 a week to run and now costs well over £35 to do the same distances. I have to drive because the public transport around here is crap. My husband works term time only so it is just me this week so I thought I’d do the responsible, economic thing take the train into work and back. This evening my train stopped five stations away from my home and turned around so I ended up right back where I came from and had to wait for the next train, which only runs once each hour. As a result I was almost two hours late getting home and walking on my own through an area with one of the highest crime rates in the county. I work for the local council and on my salary I won’t be able to afford petrol if it keeps going up but you can bet employers will have no sympathy if public transport lets us down and we turn up late. And Matt, if you think everyone can afford to move nearer to their place of work when interest rates are rising you are either sadly deluded or grossly overpaid. And if you think it’s easy to get better paid/closer jobs you clearly don’t live in the North-West. Oh, and by the way, I have looked into converting my car to LPG but it would have cost my £1500 that I just don’t have and, surprise surprise, the Government have taken away the grant that used to be available to help pay for this. And I agree with Jay, our rights to protest are being slowly and silently eaten away. I hated Thatcher, but when she tried it, she didn’t hide behind spin, we knew about it and fought back but now it is done surreptitiously under the cover of ‘anti-terrorism’ and we don’t find out about it until it’s all in the bag. There is no easy solution to this but the arrogant way this Government just tells us we have to ‘put up with it’ takes my breath away.
May 29, 2008 at 10:11 pm
Petrol prices are silly at the moment but as other people have said, earnings have increased alot over the years. Although it is tough on the people towards the bottom of the payscale, I don’t personally think that things are quite as bad as some people make out, if they think this is bad, think how things will be in the next few decades when there’s actually a shortage of the stuff! However I do think that the idea of ‘taxing people off the roads’ is ridiculous as the people in less-efficient cars (ie 4×4s and sportscars) aren’t going to give two hoots, if they can afford the £30,000 car in the first place then a few pence on petrol is hardly going to bother them is it?!
May 30, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Matt et al, what superb ideas you have. Superb ideals for a perfect, ideal world. Which this isn’t.
My car’s not terribly economical, being a petrol-engined car from 1999 and 2 litres to boot. It would be much better if I bought one of those shiny new Econetic Focuses. So I’ll sell my car for £1000 and buy a new Focus for £14,000
Hold on … I don’t have a spare £13,000 in my pocket.
So perhaps I’ll buy a nice cheap bicycle and cycle to work. But I work 95 miles away from where I live, and contract so it could be even more! That’s not going to work.
I know, I’ll use public transport. So I’ll get up at 5.30 instead of 6am, cycle to my nearest train station, get a train - hoping that it hasn’t been cancelled or delayed - then have to cycle to work. I’ll leave work at 6, provided I actually got there on time !, and do the same. Hopefully I can get home before 9pm. And I’m sure I’ll pay for the “priviledge” seeing as even with these high petrol prices, I can still drive long distances for less than it would cost via rail (unless I book really early of course)
So clearly those two ideas aren’t sustainable. I guess I should just bite the bullet and get a new house near work. What do you mean the average price of a studio flat in the Berkshire area is over £500 a month? A few years ago I could have mortgaged a house for that. Perhaps I should just buy. No wait, I’m a contractor. No mortgage lender would have me, and what if this one runs out and the only other one I’m offered is in the North of England? Move again?
All those ideas might be fine for some people, but assuming that the entire population can simply change at the drop of a hat because you can is arrogant and naive. For some, the petrol prices are squeezing them to the breadline. With no additional disposable income, how can they possibly make such expensive alterations?
June 3, 2008 at 10:22 pm
what we need is a complete uk public stopping fueling at BP and ESSO stations ,this will hit them where it hurts, causing them to reduce the price causing total price war with each ,we will then benefit from the lower price but it needs you to take the action , start now!!!!
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