Was mentioned on Top Gear tonight.
However surely there was to be a maximum in which people will simply stop buying fuel and the government will have to reduce the duty?
If it reaches say £2.50 a litre then I know several people who simply cannot get to work. One friend is on about £14k a year and is already spending £300 a month alone on fuel although is going to buy a diesel.
Another friend spends £250 a month on fuel.
If fuel prices double you can see how things will get impossible. I personaly am not going to get worried until it reaches £1.50 a litre, I think at that point my push bike might get more use.
At the moment though £15 a week isn't really an issue although I am finding I am often doing 120 miles a week plus now I will start to see it hurting.
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Last month I spent £330 on diesel. The problem is that demand for fuel is very elastic. i.e. people will continue to buy it (because they have to) even if the price goes up a lot.
Since the price shot up I have seen the roads only slightly quieter, although people do seem to be driving slower.
If prices stay high, I can see tourist destinations suffering in the summer as folk cut back on days out at the weekend.
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I can also see the trains getting better busier which just means the ticket prices will go up. I actually think we might start to see a big increase in coach travel to tourist destinations.
The bottom line is if people cannot afford to fuel their cars they will have to either move closer to work or change jobs.
I have not really noticed the roads that much quieter but what I have been doing is planning where I refuel better. I am tending to get my fuel in the Stockport area as they tend to be 3p cheaper a litre than what I pay in my area where all petrol stations are priced at 128.9p a litre.
Quieter roads will mean cheaper insurance (for people like me who have to pay a big premium) and I will be able to get to jobs quicker so in that sense I welcome higher fuel prices BUT so far I have not seen any evidence of less traffic.
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It is a worry - my fuel bill is around £250 a month. Luckily, lots of my miles are work related and I claim 40.5 pence per mile (still more than covering my costs). I have just been working out how much I could save if i swapped my car for the diesel model; I'd be about £50 a month better off assuming reliability/running costs remain the same. Thinking about what costs would stop me driving outside work, I guess £2 a litre would severely restrict my lifestyle.
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I'm self employed and have to use my car to work. The impact is being felt.
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>> I'm self employed and have to use my car to work. The impact is being
>> felt.
I'm employed by HMG, am on PAYE, & have to use my car to get to work. The impact is being felt.
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Now is really the time for the not so well off to get a small diesel before the values go through the roof. Bet you could sell an old AX diesel or 205 diesel for an indecent amount of cash this summer.
Ive a customer who has a diesel RR. She is expecting it to cost £150 soon to fill up.
Last edited by: stunorthants29 on Sun 23 Jan 11 at 22:14
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>> Ive a customer who has a diesel RR. She is expecting it to cost £150 soon to fill up.
My boss has got one. The scary part is that a tankful only lasts 400-odd miles.
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I believe the price of fuel is only going one way. The government gains too much from oil price rises to do anything until the riots start.
A while ago there were numerous fully laden supertankers moored around the UK coast for months waiting for the price of oil to go up before they were unloaded.
The forthcoming interest rate rises will have a big effect on peoples disposable income too.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Sun 23 Jan 11 at 22:18
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But there will become a point where if people stop buying it the government will loose a lot of revenue but as the duty is a percentage I am not sure at what point that would be. It might have to get very high for that to be a problem.
There also isn;t the risk of creating an ilegal trade as apart from red diesel there it is very hard to sell ilegal fuel.
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Can you still buy that BP 102 ron stuff down south? I still don't think it's made it up here yet.
I'm sure it's about £2.50+ / litre. A tankful of that in the Beemer would make the old eyes water. 85 litre tank, say 80 litres of it - £200 fill up!
Last time the fuel went up i filled the Beemer and it went over the £100 mark. Talk about sore.
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Well my prediction is that petrol will peak at around 135p at the end of March falling back to around 128p in the late summer/ autumn
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That I can cope with, it is when it starts to reach £2 a litre I think it will have severe consequences for all of the UK, at the moment the high prices are only really affecting the poor who need their car for work.
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The American driving season starts about Easter which increases demand for petrol, when that tails off in the Autumn demand for heating oil (diesel) will increase again.
Petrol demand (price) tends to increase in summer, diesel in winter.
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Hard to see price having more than a marginal effect. It's like housing costs: people generally have - or feel they have - no choice but to pay them. If fuel prices double, they'll take train and bus fares up with them because they run on the same stuff.
We all wanted cars, and the Thatcher government saw to it that we got them. We wanted low prices, so employers closed branches and centralized in places that are easy to drive to but not to live near. Some of us made choices: I work in a town I wouldn't - and fortunately don't have to - dream of living in, so I burn five litres a day to drive there, as do most of my workmates. If fuel prices are to make any difference, it won't be at the short-term level of individual journeys but in the decisions we make about home, work and life. It may even make things better.
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But public transport costs won't go up that much in proportion. For example my local bus company (Stagecoach Manchester) the daily and weekly ticket prices have stayed the same for the past for years. They achieve this by having increased ridership, e.g their buses are nearly always at least 70% full.
I have mentioned on other threads that the UK does need to think long and hard about life style and communiting distances. I am sure too many people are going in opposite directions on the motorways to exactly the same jobs.
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>> >> I have mentioned on other threads that the UK does need to think long and
>> hard about life style and communiting distances. >
>>
What about population control?
Wouldn't that be a very simple answer?
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They'll go as high as the market will pay.
People still drive around willy nilly at a tremendous rate, so we're nowhere near a plateau yet.
As Navy, interest rate rises will cause real problems when mortgages get hit, it's got to happen at some point, i hope they don't go back up to 14/15% as they were a few years ago.
Get those hatches battened firmly down folks.
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It will hit my parents very hard but hopefully they will sell up and get rid of the mortgage before that happens.
It will catch a lot of people out though.
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>> As Navy, interest rate rises will cause real problems>> Get those hatches battened firmly down folks.
>>
I had a mortgage when interest rates were 15%, so glad my mortgage days are over. I am afraid a lot of people could be in for a big shock before long. There are a lot of heads in sand.
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My parents ideally want a newish (with long lease) two bedroom flat. The gamble is when to sell the 3 bed terrace and when to buy the flat. They are in denial though and are just hoping the miricle lottery win which won't happen.
It is a real shame they had to remortgage but at the time it was the easiest thing to do.
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>> It is a real shame they had to remortgage but at the time it was
>> the easiest thing to do.
We've all gone for an easiest option at some point, without fail it's bites you in the arris and costs you far more than doing the job properly but seemingly harder first time round.
Learn well from their mistake Rattie.
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As I remember it was used to pay for emergency repairs to the house although they did use some of it to buy a car, a 7 year old £500 Lada.
A lot of it was just circumstances beyond their control and at the time when my dad his old job they could more than afford the repayments. Times change though.
There is quite a bit of equality in the house so they can pay of all their debts, buy a smaller flat and have no mortgage. Not quite the same as loosing their house is it :).
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Might even be some equity in the house too ;-)
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There is quite a lot of equity but the house does need a lot of work so it will affect its value some what.
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The equality is down to the people though ;-)
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Check your spellings lad, Im pulling your leg :-)
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They will go as high as people are preparfed to pay.
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The best way to cut the cost is use the car less, simple as. Its what the enviroterrorists want, they may get it as any family say on WTC which is for those earning below 18k will certainly feel it.
Im not sure what will happen with the very lowest earners who need cars and pensioners who are already on tight budgets, I guess there will be a fallout at some point.
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Not always that easy is it, I admit I could use my car less but I am paying a fixed cost for the insurance and loan petrol is just pennies in comparison so I may as well just use it.
The Fiesta is certainly being used less now but that is more due to a lack of work than choice.
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Its never easy, but changing behaviour now and putting the savings away in a savings account is a no brainer. Ive slashed both our petrol bills and our food bills by 25% and 40% respectively - why - well I know petrol is going up so we have rationalised our car use more ( no more countryside drives, only joined up journeys etc ) and food by planning our consumption more precisely and cutting own portion sizes to make what we do buy go further.
Its amounted to just over £100 a month. Worth doing if money is tightish.
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The continually increasing price of petrol (on an almost daily basis round here) is really starting to worry me. I'm spending around £20 per week more on petrol than I was this time last year, admittedly partly due to my working at a different depot further away.
I'm very glad that one of the few perks of my job is a free bus pass for myself and Mrs B which means that when we are off work we rarely use the cars, generally only for the weekly 'big shop'. Trouble is, I then start worrying that, whilst we are saving money on petrol, we are wasting money on finance payments, insurance etc.
I am off today, so I will be scouring the internet for a new job much nearer home. I really don not want to leave the bus industry as I am in the enviable position of actually enjoying my job, but I do need a job nearer home due to the ridiculous price of petrol at the moment.
Last edited by: Badwolf on Mon 24 Jan 11 at 09:55
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The snow of last winter and last month pushed up the second-hand values of 4x4s. The rise in fuel prices will surely bring them back down again.
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Listening to the radio this morning(BBC local) and the presenter had done fifty miles on Sunday to get a stockcube-he lives within walking distance of a supermarket.Expensive stockcube!!!
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Badwolf,
When my mate at work worked for a bus company the little perk was to get Diesel for free only approx £10.00 worth a week, He had a diesel car of course and never paid anything for 10 years.
I very much doubt this will happen today as the fuel is so expensive but im sure some in the garage may still have some.
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Not a chance these days, Bigtee. The company I work for dye their fuel* and have computerised pumps that won't work unless a bus's fleetnumber (that the system recognises) is keyed in.
*Any rumours that they send the garage apprentice out to buy striped dye are false ;-)
Last edited by: Badwolf on Mon 24 Jan 11 at 11:45
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ever since i was 17 and had a license i have always used the car to enrichen my mind and explore the local area and the rest of the uk wnever i wanted to. if i see a lane and dont know where it goes then i'll drive down it to take a look. if i fancy going somewhere then i dont care of the cost of the fuel within reason.
it would have to be a lot more expensive than it is now to curtail my enjoyment of seeing something new or enhancing and would stop buying newspapers, childrens extra sweets etc before i cut down on car use
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>> it would have to be a lot more expensive than it is now to curtail my enjoyment
Same here. Mind you, I let the car get down, foolishly, to virtual fumes over the weekend - I estimate I had less than five miles range left.
A fill up of unleaded was eye-watering - nearly 45 quid :)
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i filled the c3 picasso from nearly empty yesterday and it took £64. ouch but i borrowed my fathers xjr last week and it was averaging 16mpg with a fill up from nearly empty at £95 but dont know how big the petrol tank is on that.
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Our diesel usage is about 3500 litres / year, so currently running at c£4600pa at £1.32/litre. If it hits £1.43 (entirely possible after April's tax rise) it will top out at £5k pa. Very ouch! That may well lead to a reappraisal of how we use our cars - although the first 1500l is commuting...
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If you're spending anything close to £5k a year then I think you really need to do need to think long and hard about where you live, your job and your life style. Of course if you earn £100k a year in that job then £5k dosn't really matter, but if you earn £20k it is a huge chunk out of your wages.
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Saw a scare story that suggested it could reach £8 a gallon in the summer. Thats something to look forward to then :-)
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relevant at the moment
Quentin Willson challenges MPs over fuel prices
: On Tuesday 25th January, at 9 am , Quentin Willson, the well-known motoring columnist and TV presenter, will be on College Green, opposite the House of Commons, to present MPs with letters from the Fair Fuel UK Campaign. The Campaign has appeared on BBC SE, ITV, BBC Politics Today, Sky News, Radio 5 Live, Radio 4 and many local radio stations; all in just 12 days since the launch. Things are moving fast, but it is the petition that really counts to show the magnitude of opposition. So please spread the website link to help this campaign succeed.
www.fairfueluk.com
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>> relevant at the moment
>>
>> Quentin Willson challenges MPs over fuel prices
>>.........
>> www.fairfueluk.com
>>
Complete and utter waste of time.
Apart from anything else, Quentin Willson is quite the wrong person.
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Even if you do earn £100k p.a. £5k is not that far off 10% of net salary,assuming a degree of pension contribution, which is still a significant chunk. At £20k it's a third.
Interestingly from the Government (whether this on or the last I'm not sure...) says that a household is in fuel poverty if it needs to spend more than 10% of it's income on heating...
www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/statistics/fuelpov_stats/fuelpov_stats.aspx
Peter
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Hardly the same, though, is it, Peter? Heating is a basic necessity, and the cost of heating a home is reasonably tightly defined. (Although my latest gas bill suggests it's not as tight as I'd like.). Vehicle fuel costs are open-ended and determined by people's lifestyle choices.
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Oh I agree, just highlighting the magnitude of the numbers really.
Of course, if your company pays for your fuel it doesn't make any difference. I've certainly become less wasteful (in terms of 'unnecessary' journeys) since opting out of a company car, but I haven't gone out of my way to buy an eco chariot of any kind - both our cars are petrol!!
Peter
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If it hits £2.00 a litre your going to pay it and so am i just after stop something else like nice holidays twice a year and down to camping in a field.
Nothing wrong with camping mind i love it.!!
But it won't stop me and it won't get me on the Train id be late for work.!! :-)
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While car use is determined in part by lifestyle, its not always possible to do without a car even if you want to, unless you really make your life complicated.
For us, the ideal location would be near my customers, near my wifes work and near the supermarket. Problem is, even to get the last two would mean a two mile walk with a weeks shopping, not easy if you cant walk more than 100M.
Im not that fussed about owning a car, but I dont feel this country is set up so there is a clear and affordable alternative. Town planning stinks these days and many will pay the price.
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i cant imagine ever useing trains or busses ever again.
i live in the sticks so need a car but will stop takeaways and forighen holidays before i cut down on fuel useage.
as has been said id go camping if needed to get away for a while. i refuse to be kept in one place becuase the government think they know better than the electorate
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but will stop takeaways
How would i survive without the chinky & kebab shop!!
It's not much cheaper on Trains and Buses when you take into account there packed and the time it takes the car is much easier.
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can you imagine only being able to go somewhere a train or bus went. if you could only go to somewhere within walking distance of the train or bus stop then half the country would be abandoned. i never want to live in a town or city again and adore the solitude we get here (except for the festival of speed).
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I think they should make everyone swap jobs so they work near home - the traffic driving in each direction across the M62 every rush-hour is madness!
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Public transports costs depend on where you live. About 1 million people are reachable with an £11 a week Stagecoach Megarider, or 2.6 million people with an £18 a week GMPTE ticket. Both are far cheaper than any car would be.
It really depends on where you work too. If I worked in an office in the city centre then there is simply no way I would use the car. If I include parking the car would cost around £4000 a year compared to £572 a year on a bus.
As I work all over south Manchester and need to often pick computers up using public trasnport would be a hinderence. It would be possible but I choose to pay more to have a car because I can get far more work done and it also looks a lot more professional.
Bill Payer I suspect we need more job swap schemes to enable such a thing to happen. I sugggested an other post that employers would be taxed more if they employed people that live far away from the work place although in practise it would be about as popular as Hitler.
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Ratto, too much personal info, methinks. You don't want it to end up hidden like your thread from a week ago, do you?
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...I live in the sticks so need a car...
Or, to put it another way, ...I chose to live in a rural area knowing that it would make me dependent on my car... I have no idea whether this applies to Nyx, of course, but I know plenty more who did just this. Add in those parents who exercised their 'right of choice' to send their children to a school miles away instead of the local one they could have walked to, and not everyone who cries foul at increasing prices is a victim of events beyond their control.
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And so everyone should move to the city. How's that going to help?
We leave the countryside to the rich?
Last edited by: Alanović on Mon 24 Jan 11 at 16:20
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of course you are correct.
i choose to live in a small hamlet and wouldnt have it any other way.
i run a car boat valeting business but dont get involved every day in that and the other work i do is a day trader for stocks etc which is done at home so i only NEED to do 12 miles a day to take youngest to school, as the nearest primary has no spaces because most of the spaces are taken up with non locals who have to drive there instead of using the local school for them.ci
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>> ...I live in the sticks so need a car...
>>
>> Or, to put it another way, ...I chose to live in a rural area knowing
>> that it would make me dependent on my car>>
I think many in the south east think living in the sticks means outside the M25. I know for a fact that many have no concept of distance.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Mon 24 Jan 11 at 16:21
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youre pretty right about that. my nearest shpping is chichester which is about 4 miles or there is another village shop about 2miles away. some new neighbors are thinking of moving already because they cant just walk to the shop when all they need is a pint of milk.
some poeple feel isolated if there isnt a gym or shops within 1/2 mile
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>> It's not much cheaper on Trains and Buses when you take into account there packed
>> and the time it takes the car is much easier.
Trains. They are cheaper for one person,
For example
Cheap day return to London 16 quid.
Parking in London all day 20 quid.
However for the missus and I = 32 quid.
Parking is still 20 quid and I wouldn't use 16 quids worth of gas getting there and back.
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maybe the younger gheneratin are buying into the idea that a car isnt a necessity and journeys can be made using trains etc.
i dont want to sit sit next to someone else who may have a cold or worse. i'll use my coccooned car to protect me and the family and drive the children whereever they need to go
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My job as a surveyor means I need a car for work. But despite this I did an experiment a couple of years ago. For 6 months I kept a car in town, cycled to the train station near home (2 miles - good for fitness) and got the train/tube to work.
It was mostly less stressful than driving but took notably longer and cost considerably more. Hence I went back to driving.
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Wildebeast
I think you forget there are those of us who live in a rural area where public transport is next to useless ! The choice of school was non excisitant so travel wasn't an option !
For me a single ticket from paddington the other day was £118.00 for just over an hours journey ! blimey I didn't want to buy the seat, just wanted a ride.
I have just caught the end of a jeremy Kyle checks out benifit Britian !
Unbelivable, there was a person with 6 kids & seventh on the way £ 17k a year in benefits as both were unemployed! jeremy offered the guy a chance to take a retraining course but he declined !
He het a guy who was working earning £25k a year working + 10k a year in Benefits by scamming !
A young lad who couldn't even get out of bed and had no drive ! jeremy arranged an interview but sadly he failed that ! he didn't even really know how to make his way through an interview & a CV with virtually no information !
The country welcomes outsiders with open arms & offers money left right and centre to all that need ! You try getting help if you go and live in another country !
I also met two years ago two families on Holiday in the South of France proud to be on benifit who claimed there illness incapcitated them but they went cycling and thy went off for a two day canoeing trip ! both had loads of kids, 2 4x4's and large late vans !!!!!!!!
Thats why we are paying so much tax! in fuel and everything else to fund too many who shouldn't get any benifit at all !
It about time the system was sorted instead of us subsidising all these scroungers
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>> It about time the system was sorted instead of us subsidising all these scroungers
Sorry, Doc, but that - and the 'stuff Johnny Foreigner' sentiment aired elsewhere - has been the last straw.
Nice 'knowing' you, chaps, but I shall bid you adieu.....
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Thread drift is one thing, ID, but citing Jeremy Kyle? Take a moment to look up 'sensationalism', then scrub your keyboard with bleach.
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At current prices of diesel and the measly 12p per mile I can claim on fuel allowance, it is costing me 3p for each mile I do on business! Granted my car driven the way I drive only returns around 40mpg (44 on the computer) and I could improve it a bit but would need to improve it by a not inconsiderable 25% to break even. At £8 a gallon (tell me you're joking) and 20k business miles that'll be costing me £1,600 a year plus 10k of my own private miles makes it over £3k (after tax) a year on fuel. I couldn't do one quarter of my job using just public transport, I wouldn't fit in the smallest EcoBluemotionetics and I don't want a Prius thank you.
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Trains can be very cheap. I spent less than £100 on tickets for my holiday in the south west. That includes travel from Manchester. I got as far as Newquay all by train. I must have done well over 1000 miles that week. How much would that have cost in fuel alone?
I also went down to the fens last year, total tickets for the return journey was less than £30 and I could have got it cheaper if I had booked further in advance. That would have been a 300 mile round trip so the car may have worked out about the same.
Dad often has to make the trip to Scunthorpe but a village about 6 miles away. The public trasnport from Scunthorpe to the village is poor so he drives but he always said if it was the town itself he would get the train.
Train can be booked for £20 return (in advance) but in fuel it costs £40 for the return journey.
Trains can be very cheap if you know how to play the game.
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Trains can be very cheap if you know how to play the game.
but there shouldnt be a need to play any game.
the fares should be simple and be able to buy a good fare when you want to travel.
if i want to go to newqauy now i will just go and not wait 2 weeks and spend time on the net having to book anything
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>> Trains can be very cheap if you know how to play the game.
>>
They are supposed to be providing a service not a price lottery. Another reason not to use them.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Mon 24 Jan 11 at 17:34
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I admit if I wanted to go to Newquay now the train would probably be about £500 on the day but I could make that much cheaper by buying a ticket to Bristol and then make way down there from there. I could probably do it for £100 walk up rate.
Personaly I am more than happy to let the rich time poor people pay £500 for a ticket when they could save £100s by simply breaking the journey.
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The simple rule seems to be:-
If the train is direct then it is most often cheaper just to buy one ticket for the entire journey.
If you need to catch more than one train then get tickets for each destination. E.g Manchester to March was over £100. It involved three trains Manchester > Leeds > Peterbrough > March. During the week it would have been more direct. I simply got a ticket to Leeds, then one to Peter' then one to March. Same journey just much cheaper.
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>> E.g Manchester to March was over £100.>>
My diesel for the Edinburgh/March/Edinburgh run was less than that.
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i could do lands end to john o groats for less than that price.. ouch
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I didn't pay anything like that, it was less than £30 return but only because I experimented with different tickets. If I had turned up on the day and went to the station and asked for March it would have been over £100.
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thats why the train is pointless. 100 on the day is ridicuolous.
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It is only pointless if you need to go on the day though. I am not in anyway saying the train can replace the car but for many journeys the train can often work out cheaper if you can plan in advance. That was my original point.
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sorry rattle. i wasnt getting at you, promise.
but to be honest if my journey was cheaper by train,bus or coach i would still use the car.
to be without the car is like a snail without its shell.
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Ok say you have a meeting in the west end. You know about it a month in advance. You live in Manchester (for the sake of argument). You can drive takes 4 hours and then you have to worry about parking or you just get a two hour train. You could be at the meeting or still be stuck in traffic on the M6.
The train has to win. Most the journeys I have done have taken just less than two hours too (faster than advertised). The average speed is 100 miles an hour, you can;t do that in a car.
Sometimes train makes sense, especialy major city to major city, but othertimes they are too slow.
I found the trains in the South West to be reliable and very cheap but hopelessly slow. It took me three hours to get from Newquay to Torquay which is only 70 miles.
Last edited by: RattleandSmoke on Mon 24 Jan 11 at 17:53
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i suppose in those circumstances the train would win most likely but to be honest i wouldnt think twice about taking the car as i might fancy taking a detour somewhere off the motorway for a bit of sight seeing
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>> The train has to win
Or on my last train up from the big smoke:
A quiet siren sound in the coach followed by all train staff scurrying off out of view at a rate of knots.
Short wait later.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, i regret to announce that the train in front is believed to have hit a person. The train driver is confirming just now. If that is the case, we will be stopped here for a while, probably 2 hours."
Thankfully noone had been hurt!
Last edited by: Skoda on Mon 24 Jan 11 at 18:25
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What you forget to mention Rattle is that your train journey ended at March.
Your journey from the railway station to where you stopped for the night was by car and aslo to the event that you attended again, was taken by car simply because there is no other option to those locations.
For a city dweller moving from city to city public transport may well be an option, but for rural communities it certainly isn't.
What people also fail to realise is that most of their produce is grown and prepared in these far distant rural areas, and all need people to travel to work there on a shift basis covering the whole 24 hour period.
AND...some of us choose to live in the country because we always have done and we hate city life.
Pat
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I was thinking about that last night and meant to add that. I realise that without the lifts from Old Navy I would have had a very difficult job getting there. I could have got a taxi but that would have probably cost more than the entire train journeys.
It was probably a bad example to use because a lot of the journey was done in Old Navy's car it was just the last major train journey I have gone other than London.
I did mention some where in this post that the reason my dad drives to see my grandpa (in a small vilage in north lincs) is because it is very hard on public transport one he gets to Scunthorpe. The village does have a bus service but it is very hour.
I am sure nobody is suggesting that people move out of the country and into cities :).
I actually wish I had access to a car when I was in the south west because unlike up here the trains are very slow down there.
I really think the government would be better scrapping HS2 and spending that money on improving basic public transport in rural areas.
Trasnport poverty will probably be always worse in rural areas because you have to travel further to get to places and there is a lot less options.
Last edited by: RattleandSmoke on Tue 25 Jan 11 at 16:15
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but until these pracises or breaking your journey with no need except price are long gone then public transport is useless for most people
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Not really. You simply play about with the trainline.com and work out what ever is cheaper. In fact I think there is a website which even does all that for you.
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its so much easier and way more convinient to get into the car and just drive there.
no messing about with any tickets or booking in advance.
rattle the world is your oyster and you have a nice new car capeable of taking you thousands of miles . is there no room for spontineity.
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It depends where you want to go. North Wales has very expensive and crap train services so it is always far better to drive. Manchester to London then the train wins every time.
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Except to get a good price you have to book in advance. If you have to go at short notice, to a non-central part of London, and are not quite sure when you'll be returning, or indeed where you might need to go from London, then it's not so clear cut. If you have more than a briefcase/rucksack to carry then things get even less convenient...
I live on a direct train line to Victoria, and if I'm going into London for a meeting or an evening out then of course I'll catch the train. Anything else, probably not.
Peter
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If you had to go to the outskirts of London then even from Manchester driving might become more attractive, as you problem with London is it can take over an hour on public trasnport to get from one part from say Euston.
I do fully understand that. I am not saying nobody should ever drive to London far from it :). But sometimes it is easy to dismiss the train when people have never had recent experiences.
I have a cousin which lives 60 miles from London but works in Canden, so he simply drivses to the outkirts of Greater London and catches the tube from there.
Last edited by: RattleandSmoke on Mon 24 Jan 11 at 17:57
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i may think of using the train if i could have the carrige to myself and it stops in my garden and takes me to the office door.
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But you have legs? If we are talking about central London you won't be able to park outside anyay unless you are rich.
People often ask why I don't drive to town, well lets think I can eithyer spend £2.40 on a return tram, park up at the tram station. Sit on a tram for 10 minutes and be in town. Or I can pay £2.50 an hour on a car park after spending 15 minutes in traffic trying to get into it.
I admit I rarely use the bus any more though, they are too slow for shorter journeys when you factor in waiting time. It would take me half an hour to get two miles down the road.
I find myself getting a lot less local trains now too. The trains work out a lot better for longer journeys because they can do 125mph (140mph on the east coast) so that more than makes up for any waiting time.
I do use buses at weekend but only because it is far cheaper than a taxi. I have a job in my next town in half an hour. If I had to get the bus I would have left a long time ago. I am still in my nice warm bedroom. So I do understand the point about public transport, I hate it at times too.
Last edited by: RattleandSmoke on Mon 24 Jan 11 at 18:03
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Ratts if you enjoy trains so much come and work with us on the Railways and get FREE TRAVEL.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's the dogs hooter when you want to go by train and if you use another company your supposed to pay just 25% but nobody charges other train companies it's like a little perk between all.
Been to Edingburgh from Leeds a few times for nowt and East and West for nowt, Not done London yet can't be bothered really unless something exiting going on.
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SWM's cousin was a driver, steam and diesel. he once told me of someone who had obtained a driver's leather bag, lamp and some clothes.. used to travel free on the cushions all over the place.
That's the way to do it !
Ted
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"sensationalism" yep I raed between the lines and in fact the woman was getting £1700 per month in benifit for having 6 kids , to be increased when the seventh arrives shortly !
that where out taxes go & thats why fuel is being hiked up along with subsidising the rich bankers
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Instead of on teaching critical thinking in schools? Reckon you may have a point there.
[slaps forehead]
[rolls eyes]
[loses a little more faith in Great British Public]
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lets go to the topic of fuel prices, if fuel prices are kept high, the average person wont have enough money to spend, on products, and services, also by not taking the car out, less journeys means less revenue for the taxman, there another fuel duty increase in april, the higher petrol prices will have a knock on effect on inflation, cost of products and wages have to be put up.
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I assume you are not old enough to have experienced inflation in the past, it invariably follows a recession, and we have had (are having) a big one.
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>> it invariably follows a recession
Particularly when some plonker turns on the printing press like some third world state.
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Apart from this one the only recession I remember was the early 90's one. I remember house prices seemed to stat static until about 1996 after the late 80's boom.
Last edited by: RattleandSmoke on Tue 25 Jan 11 at 11:44
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Ratts, we did not have a decent recession while labour was in, they disguised any problems by borrowing more and spending much more, thats why the country is skint now. I believe there is far, far worse to come.
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But the UK wasn't the only country do that was it, or Ireland or Greece would not be in such a mess now.
I think the worst to come will be in job losses. I think the best industry to be in right now is the food retailing market. People will always need food no matter how hard things get.
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We have had a couple of decades of easy credit, huge easily available mortgages, and many have fallen into the trap by living on the very limits of, or beyond their income.
I don't think we have seen even the start of belt tightening yet, and there is real pain to come for a lot of people.
Payback time has arrived.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Tue 25 Jan 11 at 12:23
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But it might not get that bad. The media always paint a bleak picture to sell papers. Certainly in my local area some of the bars have closed since the new year and I think there will be more to come.
There is still an awful lot of people with a lot of money and I suspect it those people which will prop things up.
I am worried about my area though as it is full of public sector graduates so their jobs may be at risk.
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>> But it might not get that bad.>>
I hope you are right Ratts, When I had a mortgage the banks would grudgingly give you three times one income. It was one hell of a struggle when inflation set in and interest rates shot up, and I had a secure job. Also credit cards did not exist for the workers. I believe there are people with 5X two income mortgages these days, and maxed out credit cards.
Draw your own conclusions.
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A lot of them got caught out when the inteest rates raised before the recession, actually isn't that what caused the banks to crash in the first place?
I have never really understand 5x mortgages they just seem to risky, I don't think they are offered any more though.
I think the real problem will be when people loose their jobs and they have to pay what was a 5x income mortgage. i suspect we will see a lot more people living in coaches.
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>> I believe there are people with 5X two
>> income mortgages these days, and maxed out credit cards.
>>
>> Draw your own conclusions.
>>
And I forgot the car loan. :-)
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In my case that is only 15% of my monthly income and I planned for the fact the value of it can only go down. As said before I would rather spend money on interest on a brand new car than on parts for a 10 year old one. Just look how many £1000's Stu has wasted. I think people get into the mortgage trap because they assume the prices will only go up, when prices go down they are trapped in negative equalty.
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Payback time has arrived.
Not yet but by the end of 2011 it's going to get rather uncomfortable...
IF and when interest rates rise, an awful lot of people are going to learn about negative equity.
It is reckonned the period to sort out a financial bubble is about as long as the bubble itself. So 2020 then..
Based on my experiences in 1980-1990 that seems about right...
Last edited by: madf on Tue 25 Jan 11 at 16:20
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Drive offs and fuel theft will become more common too.
I've gone self employed so I'm either going to claim mileage or get fuel and maintenance costs of business use off any tax due. This way I'm better off! Seems the worst off are those on PAYE as you get taxed when you work and taxed again when you buy fuel. If you're Self Employed then you choose how much money you give the tax man to a greater degree.
I have been relaxed about claiming all possible allowances but now I intend getting every single one I can and to reduce the tax bill as much as possible. Not giving these clowns money to waste on bankers and benefit scroungers.
One benefit is that high fuel prices mean the peasants are kept off the highway :-)
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Not really you still need to declare every single job, which I do because it is easier, I do claim 80% of my car expenses against tax though which is still realistic as at moment pretty much 90% of all trips are business related.
I have also been very careful about keeping every single petrol receipt and every receipt even right down to a £2 pack of CDRs.
That said we all need to do pay tax and it goes on a lot of good things too. I just pay what I legally need to pay, no less and no more.
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>> If you're spending anything close to £5k a year then I think you really need
>> to do need to think long and hard about where you live, your job and
>> your life style.
I spend about £2500 a year on diesel
My wife spends about £1200 a year on petrol.
We live nearer her work than mine but between the two.
Where would you suggest we move to, or should we stop working?
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This is the kind of long-term adjustment I was referring to earlier, IJWS. Cheap car transport - and it has, in historical terms, been very cheap over the last 20 years - has encouraged people to live further from where they work. This has helped fuel the rise in dual-income households, which drove up house prices and so made dual incomes a near-necessity. It also served to raise house prices in places with no high-paying employment of their own.
If fuel prices are going to stay high, the number of jobs worth travelling for will diminish, which may be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how you look at it. The point is that economic systems are complex and you can't adjust one factor without affecting all the others.
Last edited by: VxFan on Wed 26 Jan 11 at 09:51
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>> One friend is on about £14k a year ...........
Gross or nett?
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Gross.
I assume you were replying to me.
He has no choice but to travel 70 miles a day (round trip) because is the only place he could find work. Another friend travels 100 miles a day (round trip) but she could find work more locally but she needs a job which will help her career and that was the nearest one she could get. So in that case it is her own choice to travel 100 miles a day.
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Brent Crude dropped below $97/bbl today and is currently trading at $95.31/bbl for March delivery. That should knock 2p/litre off at the pumps in a few weeks.
A statement from the Saudi Oil Minister forecast that oil futures for 2011 should remain unchanged and prices would be more stable than in 2010 - let's hope so.
Kevin..
PS. While writing this post it's dropped to $95.20/bbl
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That is good. I am have found that fuel is 3p a litre cheaper in the Stockport area so I always tend to put a tenner in when I am down that way now. How can just 6 miles make 3p per litre difference?
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Shell prices dropped about 3p a litre this week on the A55 - currently at 1.30.9p
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All the shells in my suburb are £128.9, the Texaco is 128.9p, the Esso/Tesco is £128.9p. Soon as I leave my suburb 125.9p. I made a thread about this a while back though.
If petrol prices stayed around the £1.30 mark it is not a major issue is it, but it is the uncertaincy which is the problem. How can transport companies work out how much to charge when they have no idea how much fuel will cost?
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I believe that OPEC are considering an increase in production. Problem in the UK is that so much of the overall price is tax that a large change in the price of crude would be needed to make much change at the pump.
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Mikey, your argument there falls down on basic maths. While the duty is a fixed amount per litre (currently 50.3p per litre for ULS diesel and petrol I think), the rest of the cost is either the cost of production or the VAT, which varies in direct proportion to the cost. So, about 40% of the cost is fixed, meaning that the other 60% is variable depending on cost, meaning we'd see about 60% of the benefit of any price drops.
Assuming of course that the oil companies passed that saving on, which they have a glorious history of not doing, despite their admirable responsiveness at passing on any increases.
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Apologies, too slow to make the edit.
Duty is actually 58.95p, making it 45% of a typical litre. So we should see 55% of the benefit of any crude price drops.
Last edited by: Statistical Outlier on Tue 25 Jan 11 at 21:39
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And of course crude is priced in US$ so the £'s recent falls will probably cancel out any marginal drop from supply increasing against demand.
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128.9 in the tescos round here, and 126.9 in Cobham, where the Sainsbury is. Strangely Cobham is a very rich place indeed where they could afford to pay far more to fill their Porsche Panameras,
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123.9 here. Cheap street :-)
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Where's that Stu?
It's 128 for U/L at Sainsbury's Six Fields and 132 for diesel.
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I saw U/L 130.0 and diesel 135.0 at the (always expensive) Esso in Royston, Herts on 3rd January. I've driven around the Midlands / NW a fair bit since then and haven't seen anywhere more expensive - although several garages in Brum last week and Manchester today were within 0.1p of those prices.
Sainsbury's at Fosse Park Leicester were at 124.9 / 128.9 at the weekend.
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Blimey I wouldn't mind some at 1.28 ltr were 1.369 ltr for derv ! Bath and have seen 1.39 ltr surrounding area !
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I can certainly agree there Dave.
Why is Royston so expensive for fuel ?
One of my friends has a chipped up Legnum and it runs best on Super Unleaded.
He has to fill up at a garage near Royston (on the A505) and this is the only place that is more expensive than Royston.
His tank full only lasts around 160 miles before it's empty !
Last edited by: diddy1234 on Wed 26 Jan 11 at 09:32
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Sainsburys, Asda and Morrisons in Kettering.
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The thing that amuses me is that we're being told by the Treasury that a fuel price stabiliser would be too complicated and difficult to implement.
Maybe we should send them on fact-finding missions to 'emerging nations' like Namibia or countless other African and Asian states to see how they've managed to do it without problems?
Kevin...
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133 u/l and 136 diesel in Cambridge this morning I notice.
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It was £1-28.9 at Bridgend on Monday and exactly the same at March yesterday.
Pat
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I wait with anticipation for the next quarters results ! I suppose if we have snow again the Goverment can blame it on the snow yet again! Don't they realise that they may have just pushed things a little too far with Vat & tax increase on fuel at the aggressive rate they are going may be doing more harm than good.
Fuel aint gonna stop unless people power shows itself.
We have just had a result with all the Libary's that were supposed to be closing in the SW and that most have had a reprieve after public outcry and the Goverment were taken back by the support for the libary's! shows how much they have their heads stuck in the sand! ( or duck ponds or expenses) mind you some will have time to ponder about the decisions in prison now ! I expect they will come out and write a book and double their fortune. Lets have a guess on what the book would be called " how to multiply your expenses claim " LOL
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Looking at this web site (below), you can see that the UK is third most expensive in Europe for fuel (after Norway and Sweden),
I wonder if people in Norway and Sweden are just as fed up with fuel prices as we are here.
www.drive-alive.co.uk/fuel_prices_europe.html
Note the figures are from October last year so the figures are slightly out.
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Norway? Doesn't that have its own oil, and is outside of the EU? Shurely shome mishtake.
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It does raise a question though, why is diesel more expensive than petrol for the UK, Northern Ireland and Switzerland ?
Most other EU countries have cheaper diesel than petrol.
Why ?
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Different rates of duty, Diddy, usually for historic reasons. I don't think France, for example, distinguishes between road and agricultural diesel the way the UK does.
But it's a meaningless comparison because countries choose different ways to make up their total tax revenue. It's no good to pick out one item and say "it's cheaper there so it ought to be cheaper here too."
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needing to clear up some loft space I decided on shredding old invoices
diesel in Feb 99 54 Litres £34.00 .629/l
bet that will cheer you all up
that means by the time my kids learn to drive( 9&6) it could be 2.60+ / litre or nearly £200 to fill up my current car
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By the time your kids are old enough to drive it will probably cost them £10k a year to insure a car so fuel costs would be the least of their worries.
Although I always winge about the high insurance premiums I pay but was amazed that my premium is actually £30 lower than average.
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2006 was a £1.00 per litre.
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When I first went to the USA (1970 ish) it was 22c a (US) gallon, with an exchange rate of $2.50 to the pound.
Even as a youngster I could afford to run a 5 litre V8.
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Petrol prices how high will they go? - Boxsterboy
