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No way we can reduce mileage really. We both have to drive to work, I do 30 mile round trip, wife does 38 miles. We have to visit parents, mine live reasonably close and we always try and visit on the way back from shops etc but outlaws live a 78 mile round trip away, we go every 2 or 3 weeks. Holidays twice a year are 1,000 miles a time normally.
Only alternative is to pack in work and sit at home miserable and broke.
Just pleased we have diesels and both average about 50 mpg, the Cooper S I had at about 28 mpg would have been hurting now.
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Definitely cut down on the non-essential trips and tend to plan to take in all the essential destinations en-route - such as shops, supermarket, doctors etc.. Santa-Fe doing 34~35 mpg doesn't help too much either in my driving cycle. As you mentioned thunderbird, Trips to our elderly parents are getting more and more frequent due to necessity and are not optional now.
We are contemplating changing our cars shortly for something more economical, but cant find the time at the moment - and what to get? diesel / petrol? And I dread the actual process of changing and all the drivel you have to swallow from the dealers.
I remember years ago my wife and i ran VW golfs and didn't even consider the mpg but now its at the forefront of our minds when picking something suitable. 50 mpg sounds like utopia to me but some years down the road will that be cancelled out yet again with rising prices?
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Scrap fuel duty altogether until the Middle East settles down.
The constant turmoil adds to the price on too regular a basis. Keep VAT on fuel and fill the tax hole with an increase in VAT across the board and marginally increase income tax as well. Spreading the load might just give the average person more change to spend in their pocket. Spending excess cash on fuel week in week out is not helping the economy or good for morale. If this keeps on going there will be rioting on the streets.
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Scrap fuel duty altogether until the Middle East settles down.
Well thats never going to happen unless a combination of us and the Americans invade the entire thing and take it all over ourselves. Even if we did that the increased demand from the Indians and Chinese would make it pointless. You need to remember the Chinese are buying about 500 cars every second at the moment. It may be controversial to admit it but those nations being potless was brilliant for us.
Keep VAT on fuel and fill the tax hole with an increase in VAT across the board and marginally increase income tax as well.
VAT was increased to 20% last year and the pressure is on the Chancellor to scrap the 50p tax rate already, let alone raise anything. The Government's already committed to larger tax concessions for low earners (albiet not as far as the Lib Dems favoured 10k threshold). Anything which would truly 'fill the tax hole' wouldnt benefit the man in the street or the motorist and it seems daft to increase income tax when less and less people are drawing an income.
Spending excess cash on fuel week in week out is not helping the economy or good for morale.
Agreed. Over the last couple of decades the average person was priced out of living in cities and big towns and now we're damaging their prospects further by pricing them out of commuting in from the outskirts. The cost of fuel is now so ridiculous people have to ask themselves if going to work is worth it and that shouldnt be the case. Since the Chancellor scrapped the January tax hike, fuel has risen in price and what people neglect to mention (i was screaming at the RHA Chairman on Sky News to point this out the other night) is VAT is applied to the fuel so the Govt's VAT take has risen in line with the rising prices - VAT which went up 2.5% last year. So the Government hasnt lost as much as they claim by deferring duty rises, in fact the coffers are still pretty full.
The biggest fallacy is the 'we need the revenue' argument because if you price people out of using it then they wont buy as much of it so you wont actually receive your increase in revenue, all you'll do is punish those still lucky enough to afford it. Even though oil is still cheap (petrol is really 60p a litre), eventually it'll get so expensive that tax on fuel is unworkable and if the Govt really want us going electric then they need to get used to that Fuel Duty revenue going down at some point so why not start getting used to it now?
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Just paid £1.17 a litre. Thanks Morrisons for the 15p off per litre voucher and having the promotion on when I was running on fumes. 52 litres to fill a 55 litre tank!
They were talking about fuel prices on 5 live today and taxes are now 'only' about 60% of the pump price after many years of it being about 80% so the Treasury is losing out.. If it was 80% per litre we would be paying over £1.70 a litre.
Edited by daveyjp on 02/03/2012 at 20:28
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They were talking about fuel prices on 5 live today and taxes are now 'only' about 60% of the pump price after many years of it being about 80% so the Treasury is losing out.. If it was 80% per litre we would be paying over £1.70 a litre.
Thats just typical nonsense from the BBC. It is true that 10 years ago tax made up 75% of the pump price, where as now its 60%. All that means is that 15% has now ballooned to 25% of an even bigger number. It doesnt mean the price has come down or the Treasury is receiving less tax from fuel, in fact the opposite is true.
The Treasury isnt 'losing out' based on that irrelevent statistic, Fuel Duty raised them £27billion last year and another £4billion from VAT. Any suggestion that the Treasury is losing out is untrue and the BBC Trust should be looking into such pathetic claims made on their radio stations.
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It sounds ridiculous to say that it was a quid a litre when I started driving......I've only been driving 4 years come May.
I have to ignore mileage - I've got to do it and there's no way I can use public transport. Grin and bear it.
It's so varying from place to place as well. Local supermarket is doing petrol at £1.33/litre. Next city, 20 miles north, has petrol at £1.39/litre. Closer to shipping too!
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They were talking about fuel prices on 5 live today and taxes are now 'only' about 60% of the pump price after many years of it being about 80% so the Treasury is losing out..
As Jamie points out, that's a reflection of a change in oil prices. Unlike VAT, Duty is an absolute tax, so the comparison with the cost of the petrol is of academic interest. The treasury have lost nothing!
I'd like to see a 5p reduction in excise duty funded by taxing the kerosene that's used to fuel passenger planes. Moving freight and people around the country is of more use to the economy than cheap transatlantic flights for businessmen and Gap Year students.
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I'd like to see a 5p reduction in excise duty funded by taxing the kerosene that's used to fuel passenger planes. Moving freight and people around the country is of more use to the economy than cheap transatlantic flights for businessmen and Gap Year students.
Couldnt agree more. Unfortunately apparently some EU law - signed so long ago that most of us here have never had the opportunity to vote on the EU - prevents us from charging even VAT on Aviation Fuel. Airline fuel is 100% taxation free which doesnt make much sense. In some cases its cheaper to fly somewhere than to drive there and that shouldnt be possible.
The Government takes over £30billion in tax from the motorist but very little from the plane user - even though Air Passenger Duty is set to rise this year. And lets not even bother with the 'green' argument from the communists who are delighted with petrol price rises because it'll stop people driving. We shouldnt even waste bandwidth discussing that.
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Scrap fuel duty altogether until the Middle East settles down.
Well thats never going to happen unless a combination of us and the Americans invade the entire thing and take it all over ourselves. Even if we did that the increased demand from the Indians and Chinese would make it pointless. You need to remember the Chinese are buying about 500 cars every second at the moment. It may be controversial to admit it but those nations being potless was brilliant for us.
You miss my point Jamie. The reason why the petrol pump price here yo yos so much is always blamed on certain global factors namely incidents across the oil producing nations or even Korea. Not because "they" have all the oil. As pointed out, the price of oil is relatively cheap, before tax/VAT is added. So why can't the tax be temporarily removed until the jittery oil companies or retailers stop increasing the prices on a whim. The cessation of fuel duty increase by the government of a penny here or there is a token effort. Makes no difference to the price rocketing upward. Speculators and oil p-roducing countries share most of the blame. I suggested the fuel price stabiliser in the letters page of a daily newspaper when Blair was PM and Brown was Chancellor. I even suggested on here.Many moons ago. The tories got hold of the idea and said they would introduce, which they haven't. If they don't, they can spend some of that increasing revenue on police dealing with the coming riots in this country. Up the revolution! ;-)
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As pointed out, the price of oil is relatively cheap, before tax/VAT is added. So why can't the tax be temporarily removed until the jittery oil companies or retailers stop increasing the prices on a whim.
Retailers make practically nothing out of fuel, 2p a litre maybe. Thats not important though. If you remove 100% of Fuel Duty that leaves a £27billion shortfall in the accounts of a Government which is already operating at a loss. For every 1p of fuel duty you cut you need to find around £500million to pay for it. To put it in perspective, the NHS costs £2.3billion per week to run and the pensions cost £93billion a year. Fuel Duty is the treasuries 5th biggest income stream, if it were to suddenly disappear the only alternative is horrific levels of Government borrowing which would see us bankrupt within a year and London looking more like Athens. In light of those costs you could argue £27b is actually a tiny amount of money and we're screwed either way but thats for another time.
The other main point is oil companies will never stop being jittery and the middle east will never stop reducing production everytime some Saudi takes offence at his neighbours lawn patterns as long as they both know they have the world economy over a barrel, literally. Prices increase because of speculators, retailers charge today what they anticipate the fuel will cost in 3 weeks time and the price of that fuel is set by means beyond our control. However the Bank of England's insistance on printing more money and devaluing our currency further against the dollar (which oil is priced in) has also led to price increases which were within our control. The oil price can remain the same but if the GBP is worth less than it was a year ago, the price will go up.
The cessation of fuel duty increase by the government of a penny here or there is a token effort. Makes no difference to the price rocketing upward.
Agreed. The 1p cut last year was a token gesture considering the VAT rise put it up 4p to start with, so the net result was a 3p increase which was billed as the Government helping the motorist. Since then they've cancelled another two duty rises but the product price has increased leading to higher VAT receipts yet they'll tell us they drastically need the money this August. Its at such a high price now that 1 or 2p here and there (up or down) makes little difference. In a typical car doing 35mpg on a typical mileage of 12k p.a with petrol at a typical 135.9, a 1p reduction would save that motorist less than £16 a year, or 4pence a day to be precise. Its not like you could retire on such a saving is it? Of course thats not the issue, the issue is the fact that motorist is paying over £2,000 a year in petrol to start with.
Your remark of it doing nothing to prevent rocketing prices is true enough, so what happens when we remove all the tax and the fuel itself ends up costing £1.50 a litre? Which it will within the next 15 years if current conditions remain.
I suggested the fuel price stabiliser in the letters page of a daily newspaper when Blair was PM and Brown was Chancellor. I even suggested on here.Many moons ago. The tories got hold of the idea and said they would introduce, which they haven't. If they don't, they can spend some of that increasing revenue on police dealing with the coming riots in this country.
The Conservatives formulated a hairbrained idea called the 'Fair Fuel Stabiliser' yet upon looking into the specifics, it was clear the plan was to raise duty every year, but the rise would be modest if oil prices remained high. Thats not a Stabliser, that is an Escalator and it was rightly scrapped. The problem with a stabiliser is what price to we choose to stabilise it at? To make any serious difference to people - and enable our haulage firms to compete with foreign rivals - it needs to come back down to 90-110p a litre and that would still need serious cuts in public spending to afford, cuts which the Tory party would take a generation to recover from.
There might be riots one day, if this was France they'd have burned entire cities by now. But in Britain riots seem to be sparked by something sudden, like the Poll Tax which immediately had a widespread negative effect or the August Riots when the underclass decided they didnt have enough Nike Trainers. Things like that.
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There we are then, Government can't afford to drop the duty, fuel companies certainly won't want a drop in profits and motorists don't want to be ripped off by either. It seems we motorists will have to pay up.
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Its just as expensive in mainland europe here in Germany its dearer than the UK .But at least we have a good transport infrastructure unlike the UK which is a third world country when it comes to transport.
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unlike the UK which is a third world country when it comes to transport.
Ridiculous trope. Germany, like France, enjoys the benefit of a much lower population density that is more evenly distributed around the territories. The UK isn't just small in terms of total size; if you look at the distribution of people, much of the population lives is small belts. Of course the transport network is stretched.
I'm sick of hearing about how great continental transport is-because it isn't. France's much vaunted TGV is a white elephant. Yes, it is great of you want to travel north to south, but what if you want to go east-west? Um...er...
Britain has a much more comprehensive rail network. Yes, it is slow, but you can get from virtually any town to any other town. The same is not true in France. Outside of Paris, I see very few buses-and far fewer rural bus services.
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Ridiculous trope. Germany, like France, enjoys the benefit of a much lower population density that is more evenly distributed around the territories. The UK isn't just small in terms of total size; if you look at the distribution of people, much of the population lives is small belts. Of course the transport network is stretched.
I'm sick of hearing about how great continental transport is-because it isn't. France's much vaunted TGV is a white elephant. Yes, it is great of you want to travel north to south, but what if you want to go east-west? Um...er...
Britain has a much more comprehensive rail network. Yes, it is slow, but you can get from virtually any town to any other town. The same is not true in France. Outside of Paris, I see very few buses-and far fewer rural bus services.
I cant comment on rural bus services, but having worked for continental companies for 10+ years all I can say is that every time I have ever made a train journey in France, Germany or Italy it has been better and cheaper than anything we see here in the South East.
For instance, I fairly recently got the train from Central Paris to CDG Airport, and this cost about 8 Euros. You try doing this journey from Paddington to Heathrow (which is less distance) for this price. I have used the German S-Bahn quite a bit over the years, which is like our regional train service, and this was always very reasonable to a 30-40 minute ride something similar to Reading to Paddington.
As for being able to get to and from almost bany town in the UK by rail, yes if you can stand huge waits, have all day and dont mind umpteen changes, this was only really true in the pre-Beeching era I think.
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Its just as expensive in mainland europe here in Germany its dearer than the UK.
Not strictly relevent or comparible because many European nations pay a higher price for the fuel than the UK does, the UK gets a very good deal on its fuel and its some of the cheapest in the EU before tax is added.
But at least we have a good transport infrastructure unlike the UK which is a third world country when it comes to transport.
A big difference is geography. Germany is central in Europe with the continents biggest economy. Its a massive transport hub with the World's third biggest motorway network, and public transport which actually works. Germany would be unable to function as it currently does if it had the inferior transport inferstructure of the UK.
The UK on the other hand is an island in the North Sea which depends on road travel. We rely heavily on imports and most of them go by road. Outside of London, public transport is useless meaning a country with 62 million people has 33 million cars. Our Government has done its best to destroy transport in the UK by smashing and battering the car on bogus environmental grounds, the road network is from the 70s and is unfit for the 21st century. And they've been shoving billions at useless public transport projects which has failed to result in any more bus routes, bus services, train routes, train tracks, train services or indeed trains themselves.
This country depends on cars. Its a shame our leaders have been determined to destroy our economy in the name of 'climate change' which in itself is stupid as road transport only makes up 20% of the UK's carbon emissions and the UK makes up only 2% of World man made emissions. Germany is the biggest energy user in Europe and the biggest polluter, but thats an unfortunate biproduct of a proper transport inferstructure.
There we are then, Government can't afford to drop the duty, fuel companies certainly won't want a drop in profits and motorists don't want to be ripped off by either. It seems we motorists will have to pay up.
Not strictly true. The Government can afford to drop the duty quite easily, the problem is they probably cant drop it enough to make a significant difference. Not quickly anyway. Fuel company profits come from many areas aside from just selling petrol. Something will have to give eventually though, it cant go on like this for much longer.
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I work as a CAD guy for a engineering company we didn't have an increase last year. Plus the subject is very quiet for this year....
chap here last year changed from petrol to diesel but over the past 12months that saving has gone.
So I have taken it one stage further and resigned last monday. Got a new job 9 miles from home rather than a 50mile round trip, the new place even takes part in the "cycle to work" scheme. so can get a bike pretty much vat free...so will try and cycle to work once a week, and drive the rest..... even if i just drive to work everyday it will still put £1.5k into my back pocket, and thats before you factor in extra car services, etc etc...
could i take another form of transport to work...no, i work in a remote village without even a corner shop/pub. The nearest shop is over 6miles away....
Paul.
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Where do get such rubbish from.
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