Apathy to petrol prices

vikingaero

COSTLYPETROL wrote: »

I have noticed that petrol at Tesco in my area is 5p per litre dearer than their store 6 miles away.

The "customer service" people simply do not care.

Others tell me the price of petrol at Tesco stores varies from town to town.

I now buy at Asda where it is 5p cheaper.

I do not know of any organisation that cares about this blatant theft of our money. The politicians most certainly do not care.

Anybody any ideas how to get the prices reduced?

It's a free market. Tescos do charge different prices in different towns. So what? You don't have to fill up from them and you can choose to shop around.

A._Badger

vikingaero wrote: »

It's a free market. Tescos do charge different prices in different towns. So what? You don't have to fill up from them and you can choose to shop around.

It's a little more complicated than that. Usually, within a given area, the handful of filling stations operate a kind of unwritten, unspoken cartel, floating their prices up and down in harmony. Rarely does one break the unarranged arrangement.

They know that (quite rightly) people won't deliberately drive long distances just to fill up, so they can operate like this more or less without challenge.

It's questionable whether you could accurately describe such a situation as a 'free market', particularly where the cost of market entry is prohibitive.

Snakeeyes21

hows about this for a drastic idea, why not drive less if your worried about prices?
that 1 mile to the shops, cant you walk it?
the school run, send the kids off hiking (no there isnt a !!!!!phile in every hedge waiting to get them)
Prices wont go down because they know fat lazy people will continue to pay it so they dont have to use their god given transport and god forbid break out in a sweat.

Money_Grabber13579

vikingaero wrote: »

Is fuel currently taxed at 15% VAT? If so when VAT increases back to 17.5% then that's more on the price of fuel from 01/01/2010

The VAT was cut on fuel but it was made up by adding extra duta. So yes, it will go up again in January.

Petrol ranges from 107.9 - 110.9 (Supermarket - Maxol/BP)

A._Badger

Snakeeyes21 wrote: »

hows about this for a drastic idea, why not drive less if your worried about prices?
that 1 mile to the shops, cant you walk it?
the school run, send the kids off hiking (no there isnt a !!!!!phile in every hedge waiting to get them)
Prices wont go down because they know fat lazy people will continue to pay it so they dont have to use their god given transport and god forbid break out in a sweat.

I do hope the eco-fairy reminds me of these wise words when next I have to collect a load of logs (of which she also approves, of course) from the supplier, ten miles away. Or visit the shops for a loaf of bread (several miles).

Or, if she doesn't, that the self-righteousness fairy will appear at midnight and strike some sense into people who think everyone lives where they do.

joolsybools

A._Badger wrote: »

I do hope the eco-fairy reminds me of these wise words when next I have to collect a load of logs (of which she also approves, of course) from the supplier, ten miles away. Or visit the shops for a loaf of bread (several miles).

Or, if she doesn't, that the self-righteousness fairy will appear at midnight and strike some sense into people who think everyone lives where they do.

By several miles I presume you mean something between 3 and 8? Hardly difficult on a bike.

Of course it isn't reasonable to expect people to bring logs home on a bike. Unless they have a cargo bike

Rolandtheroadie

Snakeeyes21 wrote: »

hows about this for a drastic idea, why not drive less if your worried about prices?
that 1 mile to the shops, cant you walk it?
the school run, send the kids off hiking (no there isnt a !!!!!phile in every hedge waiting to get them)
Prices wont go down because they know fat lazy people will continue to pay it so they dont have to use their god given transport and god forbid break out in a sweat.

They also realise everyone will still go to supermarkets to buy the goods brought in by road. They'll still need their bins empted, still need a police force, a fire service, an ambulance service. Still need coal hauled by lorries from opencast to railhead to supply power stations. Still need all the building materials hauled to London for the Olympics.
And when I decide how my children are to get to school and home again, I'll decide. (you any idea how many idiots there are on the roads?)

movingforward2010

anewman wrote: »

Easy way to do that is to add a few quid per hour to the minimum wage. Then going to work would be preferable to Job Seekers + Housing Benefit + Council Tax Benefit. Those people would pay income tax and finally feed something *in* to the system. Yes the fat cat w anchors wouldn't be happy having to pay their lowly workers more and would be more likely to ferry foreigners in illegally, but it would kind of even everything out everywhere.

The only other problem is actually creating the numbers of jobs needed. Millions unemployed, only a few thousand jobs out there.

exactly, i work 37 hrs per week for NMW:

weekly income : £184 (after tax)

out:

petrol : £40!!! (300 miles a week for work)
rent £70
parking for work £10
council tax £18
total £138

left over for utility bills,food, clothes etc £46!

job seekers allowance £ 64.30 p/w
no council tax
no petrol for work
no parking for work
no rent

left over for utility bills, clothes,food etc £64.30!

totally ridiculous , this is why i think high petrol prices are unfair, due to the area i live in I have no choice but to travel these distances for work. OK some might say move, but heck why not get on benefits instead id be better off! or WTC to top me up to getting the same as working - hardly an incentive is it

Wig

wxmlad wrote: »

exactly, i work 37 hrs per week for NMW:

weekly income : £184 (after tax)

out:

petrol : £40!!! (300 miles a week for work)
rent £70
parking for work £10
council tax £18
total £138

left over for utility bills,food, clothes etc £46!

job seekers allowance £ 64.30 p/w
no council tax
no petrol for work
no parking for work
no rent

left over for utility bills, clothes,food etc £64.30!

totally ridiculous , this is why i think high petrol prices are unfair, due to the area i live in I have no choice but to travel these distances for work. OK some might say move, but heck why not get on benefits instead id be better off! or WTC to top me up to getting the same as working - hardly an incentive is it

I agree you are better off on JSA, but if you are working you should atleast apply for working tax credits, that's what its there for, we can all argue till the cows come home that WTC is not the best way to do it, but as it's the only thing we have you should claim it.

anewman

I went off to read about WTC but came off more confused about what exactly they are and how much you get than when I started