MSE News: Fuel rise 'will force job changes'

Cash-Strapped.T32

Lizling wrote: »

Well, speaking as another person who can't understand why more people (particularly everyone commuting in London) doesn't use a motorbike or scooter ~ ~ ~ Anyway, I think it's a great way to commute. Nothing like starting the day by bimbling along the bus lane past all the car drivers sitting in their queues.

Indeed. I'm far from a car hater, had life gone another way I'd be a regular driver too, but it didn't. Oh well.

I have to agree about much of the sillyness being down to riders who ride like maniacs, or car drivers who are away with the fairies (which is of course quite possible, given that they're essentially sat on a portable recliner watching things happen on a screen - sounds awfully like a daytime TV, all you'd need to top it off is a cup holder ).

So yeah, the nature of the vehicles are different; It's easy for bikers to blatt around taking risks, and it's easy for car drivers to doze off even while awake & not notice the world around them, but as long as the bikers have the sense to be aware of all this and act accordingly, it's not half as bad as you'd think.
This goes towards the lack of imagination; "Oh bikes are so-oo dangerous, you wouldn't catch me on one of those things" is just the default position of so many drivers who have lived a life of not having to worry or even think about travel costs; hmm, I will catch you on one if petrol goes up much more mate is mine..

Limey

I've been walking to work for the last 4 weeks and intend to keep it up until the weather turns evil before Christmas.

It's amazing the difference it makes to my alertness and work performance compared to arriving half asleep in the truck.

Added bonus is not using any fuel (truck does 15 mpg) and feeling healthier all round. Add to that quitting smoking and I'm all smiles. :cool:

Shimrod

pinkteapot wrote: »

Is there any hard evidence that people are being priced off the road? Has the number of cars registered in the UK reduced?

Has anyone on here seen a noticeable reduction in congestion in their area?

I've not been priced off the roads, but I have cut down on the distance I generally drive for leisure trips at the weekend. I wouldn't think twice about visiting somewhere 120 miles away, but now I tend to go to places much closer to home.

With regard to congestion, my commute is a 65 mile round trip, mostly motorway and the traffic does seem to be lighter. I put that down to the increase in unemployment rather than people choosing not to use their car though.

motorguy

Back in '08 the last time we had a fuel 'crisis' i was paying out £500 a month in diesel and we were probably paying £100-150 a month in oil heating costs.

Firstly the car went in lieu of a more efficient one - 60mpg diesel passat instead of a thirsty diesel jeep.

By chance we had the opportunity to build our own home. It would have been easy to just run with oil and go for a 'standard' build, but we did our homework, applied simple, cheap cost effective insulation and air tightness measures to the house and opted for a wood pellet boiler instead of oil.

I now work from home too, so my 'effective' fuel bill is now £0 and we now spend about half as much as we would have on fossil fuels on renewable energy from wood pellets instead.

My wife has subsequently changed her car and got one 50% more economical too.

So over the course of 4 years we've went from spending approx £1000 a month on fossil fuels to just £180 (for my wifes car)

Not saying everyone can do it, and i dont mean to sound like some tree hugging hippie, but the reality is, fuel cost rises has been coming for a long time and is STILL set to get worse.

20% of people are really up against it and are being crucified by fuel costs on a day to day basis, BUT 80% of people really need to think outside the box and reduce their costs rather than adapt a blame culture that we need the tax dropped to suit them.

80 years ago a recession meant this...



How far away from that are we now but still complain?

Brallaqueen

Motorbikes are more dangerous, but that's no surprise and I say this as a scooter owner. You are let loose on the roads after just 6 hours of pootling around an industrial estate

You wouldn't be given free reign in a Peugeot 106 after that long would you?

Personally, I would love to see the law change to make the module 1 and 2 mandatory before you get out on the roads.

As it stands, any 17 year old nitwit just has to not fall off in his CBT be given the right to drive a 105kg of metal at 60mph!

grizzly1911

Shimrod wrote: »

I've not been priced off the roads, but I have cut down on the distance I generally drive for leisure trips at the weekend. I wouldn't think twice about visiting somewhere 120 miles away, but now I tend to go to places much closer to home.

With you on the leisure trips and visiting distant relatives. Journeys are managed.


Luckily have two diesels that do 50 & 58mpg respectively. My modest `1300cc first cars would struggle to average 30mpg in the early eighties.

We don't really have a choice to use public transport as it is infrequent and doesn't account for 24/7 working.

Pricing people off the road might work in/around major cities but not in rural/semi rural areas. Same goes for cycling for the majority.

Honda2ner

Gra76 wrote: »

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As it happens we don't live in an ideal world. Not many people do. We're getting taxed beyond what is reasonable and sticking a further 3p a litre onto what is already an obscenely taxed resource is rather annoying to put it mildly. That's going to push diesel up to an average of 152.9p at the garages around here. Assuming it doesn't go up again before that happens. Which it probably will.

As for LPG...I seem to think that's risen sharply over the last few years as well, I'm sure I can recall seeing it priced at under 40p per litre in the not-so-distant past at garages around here, and I'm pretty sure it's about double that now. Add to that the cost of installing an LPG system in the first place and you'd have to do a lot of mileage to make it break even.
<snipped>

LPG has stayed roughly half the price of petrol since I've had an LPG car (5 years), it was only 50p a litre in 1997 but then petrol was nearly double that. As petrol and diesel prices continue upwards the half price LPG gives a larger and larger saving. I plan to run my car until 100,000 miles and by then the fuel cost savings will have paid for the LPG install and the car, with a couple of hundred quid left for me to blow on something nice. LPG isn't everyone's cup of tea but if you pay more than £40 a week in fuel and don't change your car every 3 years (in which case you will lose 10 times more in depreciation anyway) then it's hard to beat.

As the government is still nowhere near its targets for alternative fuel vehicles on UK roads they will have to start looking at making LPG cheaper, not more expensive. Or perhaps more likely, the politicians will just make petrol and diesel so expensive that more people make the change to LPG.

sharnad

I try to only to go to work and back with the car making any shops trips on the way and try to visit my family after work on the way home as its cheaper. Can't believe how bad its got wondering if I could get a weekend job to try and cover it