Fuel Prices ! We are Mugs !!

Trebor16

The duty on diesel in most european countries is lower which is why diesel is cheaper than in the UK.

On a trip to Norway in August unleaded was coming in at between £1.50 and £1.67 per litre, compared to £1.33 when I filled up in Harwich just before getting on the ferry. Unleaded in Denmark came in at £1.37 per litre by comparison.

Vehicles are taxed at 140% in Denmark on purchase which makes an average family car horrendously expensive. For example a VW Golf Match in Denmark starts at 270000 danish kroner which is about £30000 at the current exchange rate. In the UK a Golf match starts at £18675.

Joe_Horner

Trebor16 wrote: »

£750 per week to rent a 2 bedroom flat in London? That might be the case in Knightsbridge or Westminster but not the case across all the boroughs.

True, but the figure for Brussels is in the "nicer" districts as well. Couldn't be bothered to go find averages across both cities because the point was just that comapring fuel or income tax on their own can give a very misleading picture.

If food, water and shelter are cheap and wages high then high tax isn't a problem. If wages are lower and the basics of survival are expensive then they are.

In modern life some sort of transport is virtually an essential because we don't all walk 2 miles to the local farm for our work, so poor and expensive public transport, combined with relatively high rents and utilities, makes high "personal" road fuel prices a problem.

eschaton

Just spent two weeks covering Netherlands/Germany/Switzerland/Italy/France.

Paid 1.55 Euro in France but the rip off was the toll fees such as nearly 40 Euros to go through a 7 mile tunnel. I can live with our rip off prices and not pay to travel on the roads.

A._Badger

It's impressive (in a sickening sort of way) to see the dismal chorus of 'well, they have to raise the tax somehow, so what difference does it make?'

Has the idea of less government waste and spending, and consequently lower taxes, completely vanished?

forgotmyname

Well what ya going to do eh?
Try convincing everyone the drop in tax is a con and nobody will believe you.

All they see is look we get an extra 20p

The_Economist

EycplUK wrote: »

Returned from Belguim on Saturday 22nd to find our good old fuel prices were up again !
When i filled the car up in Belguim with Diesel it cost me €1.31 :jper Litre equivalent to £1.08 ! UK price :j, cheapest found on way home was £1.49.9 ! :mad:
We really are Mugs over here standing for the prices we pay !

MMMMMM most annoying. O well nothing will change as usual. Thing is its not just about the fuel prices!

yorkie2

EycplUK wrote: »

We really are Mugs over here standing for the prices we pay !

You could emigrate to Belgium? Or, if you really like it here but don't like the prices, don't buy it, and instead walk/cycle/go by bus/train. If you can't do those things due to where you live, then why not move to somewhere where car ownership is not necessary.

The fact is car ownership is not necessary to live, and is unsustainable anyway, so you're best off getting out of it sooner rather than later.

As more people get driving, and the cost of extracting fuel increases, the price is only going to go up!

The_Economist

yorkie2 wrote: »

Or, if you really like it here but don't like the prices, don't buy it, and instead walk/cycle/go by bus/train. If you can't do those things due to where you live, then why not move to somewhere where car ownership is not necessary

So thats where ive been going wrong!! If only life was that simple.......

jaydeeuk1

Having a car isn't a right. If you can't afford to run it, don't have one. I'd happily see VED replaced with an extra 5p - 10p a litre though, with a set amount of £40 for so-called green electric cars

rxbren

motorists are an easy target thanks to the "carbon footprint" con (theres been at least two ice ages and there is going to be another and there is nothing we or anyone can do to stop it) the government just use it as an excuse to hammer us with more tax it wouldnt be so bad if the money was used to repair roads and get grit for winter.
when i first started driving super unleaded was 80p a litre its now nearly double and now with them so keen to make people stop smoking and banning cheap alcohol where is the lost revenue going to come from.... the motorist
we have the cheapest before tax fuel and the most expensive after tax but yet all the news focuses on how shell, bp etc make millions per day when they have other by products from the oil that they make most of their money from
this country is a joke they make all these cuts in the budget then increase foreign aid while the whole time shafting us
like car insurance companies main reason its always going up is down to the double handedness of selling on details of crash victims for compensation claims and the whole excessive payments for repairs and hire vehicles

rant over