'How much should petrol cost?' Poll discussion

Jo_F

mememememe wrote: »

Where's the option for more than £2? If I was the chancellor then I would consider setting the price of petrol at at least £2, but I would also invest heavily in public transport, both in rural areas (with buses for example) and cities, and in green car technologies and car sharing schemes. I would also highly subsidise the cost of travel on public transport to make it a much more convinient and attractive option. We really need to reduce our dependence on oil before we run out of it, and potentially cause bad global warming.

But investing it in public transport doesn't always help, we have a pretty good and regular service where I am, but where I used to work, its 5 minutes away by car, along one road that runs past my house. To get there by bus, used to take 1 hour, sometimes it was one bust straight through, sometimes I had to change in town, and it didn't help with a 9am start on a Sunday when the first bus wasn't till 8.30.

Going back to my partner, for him to get to work by bus involves him getting one bus into town and then another out to the yard. What does he do when he has a 4am start? The first bus during the weekdays leaves here at 5.20.

And for all those smug non-motorists, that are saying price the drivers off the road, are you really prepared to swallow prices of anything and everything you buy double? To see you get half the amount of food when you use your budget? Cos that is what will happen, you price the fuel too much, and the transport costs will rocket, hence pushing up the prices in the shops as it will cost the companies more and more to get deliveries. They can only pass these increases on to the end user, that would be you! (well all of us)

Oh and as the price of diesel rockets, so will your bus fares!

silvasava

grimsalve wrote: »

Do European haulage companies have to pay roadtax to drive on our roads? Why not have a toll at Dover for any lorry coming into the UK and maybe force them to buy UK petrol while they're here. I guess that would be against EU rules though

No Grimsalve they dont - however, in France the motorways are toll roads (with superb services) and in Germany, Switzerland, Austria & Italy HGV drivers have to buy a carnet to use their roads to help pay for the upkeep. This also applies to private drivers in Switzerland & Austria ( I think maybe Italy too). As we are all in the EC :mad: why should HGV's not have to pay to use our appalling road sytem & maybe that would 'plug the gap' - dont get me started on Road Tax!!!

Kilty_2

This post is relevant to this thread: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=41947742&postcount=8

rtuk85

As a northerner, I would much rather use public transport for short local journeys if it was reasonably priced... to get into the town centre from my house (a 2 mile journey down the road) would cost £1.70. So £3.40 return !! At today's petrol prices that would take me on a 60 mile round trip so opting for the car is a no brainer.

We need to learn some lessons from our European friends and introduce a low cost, effective public transport service if we're to stand any chance of encouraging people to ditch the car.

allan2006

people who dont drive or dont have a car wont escape....

buses and taxis all use petrol or diesel, so the fares will start rising soon.
Dont we still have some diesel trains too....

al the goods we buy are shunted round the country mostly in lorries, then there are more deliveries to our homes.

Staff who commute to work will want better wages etc etc.......this all leads to the inflation cycle

Pmarmalade

31March wrote: »

I'd like to see more people living close to where they work - like we used to do.

This is what I do, but then I'm still renting, single and haven't settled down to buy yet. If you are part of a couple who are both professionals you just have to go where you can take the job, and in the current job market most have to be even less picky about where they 'choose' to work.

I'm not one for commuting. I work an 8.5 hour day and if I spent 1 hour travelling to work and another hour travelling home I personally count that as a 10.5 hour working day (essentially two hours unpaid!). Even just now I'm only 30 minutes away from work (10 min train, 20 min walk) and feel that when I get home from work there's only time to cook, eat and do chores before it's time for an early night so I can get up for work in the morning.

Pmarmalade

rtuk85 wrote: »

As a northerner, I would much rather use public transport for short local journeys if it was reasonably priced... to get into the town centre from my house (a 2 mile journey down the road) would cost £1.70. So £3.40 return !! At today's petrol prices that would take me on a 60 mile round trip so opting for the car is a no brainer.

I'd say that's not the whole story though. There's also the wear and tear on the car and general upkeep. This is why if we use our cars for work purposes we receive 40p/mile and not the price of petrol/mile. The fact this 40p hasn't increased even though petrol prices have almost doubled is perhaps another discussion...

If you didn't use the car for work but would still keep it around for general use (my current personal dilemma as I no longer drive to work) then obviously the road tax remains the same and insurance might not change much but if you were then able to get rid of the car you'd save a lot of money.

Superman809

Negative externalities do need to be taxed for. On this point I believe that other markets get away with this and shouldn't. Fast food should be taxed more heavily.

People complain about the cost yet I still almost never see more than one in a car. Further I am still overtaken regularly by people in inefficient, luxury cars doing dumb speeds. I understand some people are limited by funds but I feel better prepared than most for the current costs situation; £20pa + 54MPG around town. I'm certainly saving money and time over public transport, and gain convenience.

The government is telling people to look wider for jobs, yet current taxes soil the benefits of working in this way. I can see there being benefits to the economy of relief being applied here. My counter point; more cars on the road as a result of lower costs is one of the worst things I can think of, and increases all negative aspects of driving (and parking!)

I didn't answer the survey because I don't really have an answer. I don't think it should be much less and I think people should plan better. Of course I don't want to pay more.

What is fuel tax currently spent on? Why not use these funds for sustainable fuel grants or build more cycle tracks and car-pool lanes. Consider the impact of lowering fuel taxes with those losses being regained through significantly higher penalties to those contravening motoring laws.

Teribus

Some comments in this thread are extremely narrow minded I think.

A lot of people seem to think the best thing is to drive up the cost of fuel, forcing people onto public transport - Yes it's a fine idea, but only in those locations in the UK where there is public transport to force people onto!

Outwith major cities, us folks in rural areas don't have the same kind of public transport network. We don't have the frequent "every ten minutes" buses, or the well thought out railway/underground/tram networks. We get at best, one bus an hour linking the various towns together, or at worst, one bus a week. That's if there's a bus at all!

I think the same train of thought can go for the fight for hefty road tax on "chelsea tractors" - inner city bums thinking of themselves yet again, and then the poor farmers out in the sticks (who supply so many vital food stuffs into the cities) are left forking out massive amounts for the land rovers they require to keep their farms working.

In a city where you have good public transport, where (for most) work, rest and play are all within a few miles of each other, then I can agree that a car is a luxury.

Out here in rural areas, a car becomes more of a necessity - you can hardly carry a week's worth of shopping out to a bus stop to wait an hour on an overcrowded bus which will drop you off a mile away from your house. It's far easier to take the car, and bring the food right back home again.

I live 7 miles away from my workplace - i'd like to live in the same town, however to get a decent family-sized house (thoughts of the future and all that) would cost more than I could get a mortgage for (roughly speaking, 30% more than I paid for the house I have in a smaller outlying town).

During summer months, when it's actually getting to be daylight at 5am, I use a hybrid pedal cycle with a small electric motor to get to work. I'd use a regular pushbike, but unfortunately after cycling the hilly terrain around here, when I get to work I'm fit only to collapse - no way I am able to manage an 8-hour shift!

However, during the rest of the year, when it's too dark or the weather too poor, I have to use the car - there's no public transport alternative which will get me to my place of work for my 6am start (unless I take the staff bus which will get me there an hour and a half before my shift starts - no thanks!). Me and my wife both work in the same building and on the same shifts, so we car-share. Also, we have bought ourselves a small capacity petrol car which qualifies us for £20 road tax, and returns 50+MPG (Yes it's expensive to buy a new car, but we intend to keep it for a long time so hopefully the outlay will work itself out over the years).

So I'm sorry if I'll upset the tree huggers, but I can sleep easy about my car use - I only use it when necessary for commuting, or certain social needs. I very rarely travel in the car on my own, there's typically always at least my wife with me. I drive a vehicle which is very fuel efficient and is one of the "greenest" cars on the road at 103g/km.

But even still, the fuel costs are eye watering.

I have voted for £1 a litre because I believe that's a good starting block. It would allow hauliers and public transport providers to reduce their charges, which in turn would reduce overall costs for everyday needs, and I believe this would get the economy kick-started again.

A year ago, my average weekly shopping bill was around £40, currently it's £50 - I believe almost solely because of the increased cost of fuel driving the price of everything up.

As stated by many already, we are a country which relies on fossil fuels for most of the things we do, as there aren't many viable alternatives available. I'd love to have a solar panel powered car/house, but up here in Scotland it would only work for three days of the year! :rotfl:Joking aside, while we still rely so heavily on fossil fuels, having them at crippling costs is crippling our economy.

As for where the tax goes - get the "winnaeworks" out of the pub and out into the streets keeping them clean. Time to change attitudes, so that those who currently sit on their backside and let the general public pay for them now have to go out and give something back to the country for they money they are given. PLEASE NOTE THIS IS NOT AIMED AT THOSE WHO CANNOT WORK FOR WHATEVER REASON - SUCH AS DISABILITY, CARING FOR A RELATIVE ETC. AND IT ALSO DOESN'T COUNT FOR THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN MADE REDUNDANT AND CANNOT FIND A NEW JOB. IT IS SOLELY AIMED AT THOSE WHO BELIEVE IT IS THEIR RIGHT TO BE HANDED MONEY FROM THE TAX PAYER WHILE THEY SIT AROUND IN THE HOUSE/PUB/ETC AND GIVE NOTHING WHATSOEVER BACK TO THE COUNTRY


I'm sorry for the long-winded post, and the digressions!

-T

michaels

Hello - there was a poll and the majority said they would like petrol to be cheaper..no !!!!!!

To be fair though it seems unclear why the taxation on motoring is higher than on other activities.

It could be justified that the total motoring taxes should pay the cost of the road network plus extra to cover for example the health costs of accidents and pollution plus an amount to cover the carbon emissions contributing to global warming - petrol taxes make sense for this as they are pretty much directly related to miles travelled.

It would also make sense to apply a 'rationing' charge to ensure efficient use of scare road resources but petrol tax is not the best way of acheiving this as it does not penalise those using highly congested city streets and motorways any more than rural users, especially unfair as for the former there may be a viable alternative public transport option but there can not be for the latter.

Finally there is no reason that motoring should not pay part of general taxation for the NHS, pensions and benefits as every other activity does - hence charging VAT on motoring costs at the same rate as other costs seems to make sense.

However motoring is currently taxed far beyond the total of all these costs because it appears to be an easy target in that it is in the main an essential for most users and thus even very high levels of taxation do not significantly reduce consumption and tax revenue. The taxation is virtually impossible to avoid (unlike ciggies and booze) and there is a 'moral' side to the argument specifically amongst many urban 'opinion formers' for whom motoring is 'evil' as it is environmentally damaging and unegalitarian.

Overall conclusion - motoring should be taxed but it is already considerably over taxed and it is likely to get worse.