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The price of both unleaded and diesel has gone through the roof in recent months.
So are motorists keeping their cars in the garage and making fewer journeys?
Video journalist Victoria Hoe went out and about to canvass opinion.
Watch the video and then post your views below.
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40 Comments
Fuel here in Saudi is just 17 pence per litre if Saudi Arabia can afford to sell it at that price then the Labour party has been ripping the motorist off by an obscene amount of money. Take a leaf out of the Saudi’s book Gordon. Take some of your Tax off. Do something sensible like quadroupling the tax on the sale of knives.
Would you ask turkeys to vote for Christmas?
Of course people are going to whinge about petrol prices - it’s like shooting fish in a barrel.
How about this though - let’s say this summer shapes up to be as wet as last year. Let’s say that we get flooding as bad as last year.
You then interview people about the flooding and they say “oh the government should do something about it, the rotters”.
Then the government says “we tried doing something about it by rising fuel duty by 2p, but you got all upset and started crying to we had to abandon it”.
You would be very happy then would you, you ignorant, duplicitous and irresponsible little children.
Move closer to where you work, or work closer to where you live. Insulate your little box houses. Stop spending so much money on DVDs, clothes, holidays and useless tat you don’t need and spend it on food instead. Grow up.
Rebecca - you’re my new favourite person
Rip-off Britain…..Rip-off New Labour
Go to the Government web site and sign the petition to “try” to get the fuel prices reduced.
Well,one can try !
Dudley Bloke - so if the government backs down on its commitment to raising fuel duty by 2%, what will happen? Oil prices will continue to rise by 2% in few months anyway, and then keep going.
Fuel duty is an attempt to get blockhead motorists to drive less. If you want to save money and pay less fuel duty, then leave your car at home. It’s really, really, really simple.
No amount of public protest, or petitions or even voting for the spin-happy Tory party is going to bring back oil. We need to wake up and change the way we live.
If you want a fairer tax, then we need to petition the government to get rid of road tax, and replace the revenue in even higher fuel tax. At the moment, paying a lump sum for road tax gives drivers an incentive to drive even more, in order to get “value for money” on the road tax they’ve spent. Fuel duty, however, works in exactly the opposite way. Sure, it penalises people who live in rural areas as they have to travel further between schools, houses, jobs, shops - but then if rural areas don’t use space efficiently, why should the urban dwellers subsidise them? We complain about the EU subsidising inefficient farmers, so why don’t we complain about subsidising country folk?
Dudley bloke - why? The polluter should pay. If there’s one single labour principle I agree with its the continuous rises in fuel tax. It impacts me as much as everyone else but its the single most justifiable policy they have
Whats the point? The gouverment never listen to the people of this country so anything we do or write gets ignored.
Regardless of tax, oil prices (you know oil, its that stuff used to make petrol) have shot up.
So of course fuel prices have gone up.
Rising prices tend not to make people drive less - you own a car, you pay finance, insurance and road tax, of course you will use it for the convenience now you have it.
But it does mean a higher portion of income is spent on fuel.
Sure, government can cut fuel tax. Anytime.
But will people be happy about a massive increase in road tax or income tax to compensate? Government needs income from taxes in order to spend - we benefit from that spend with roads, schools, healthcare, security etc.
Would people be happy with a cut of 10p in fuel tax and at the same time a cut of £20 billion from the NHS? Probably not.
After a point the fuel price issue does self-correct. People stop buying or when replacing vehicle look at something cheaper to run.
Or even (shock, horror!) perhaps drive a little more fuel-efficiently. Less than 100mph on the motorway perhaps.
Rebecca, people like you make me chuckle. Some people……hauliers, taxi drivers, people living out in the sticks, businessmen and women who have to travel all over the country lugging ridiculous amounts of equipment with them amonst others are being hit extremely hard by fuel prices. Small businesses are being destroyed which will harm the economy more than a cut in fuel tax when benefits start being drawn due to redundancy. And as for your flood defence argument, government departments are allocated budgets at the start of a financial year through different sections, there is no overall tax slush fund. Fuel tax would not go anywhere near the environment agency. If the governmet decided to recoup a fuel tax cut it would be through other vehicle related taxes or none household fossil fuel taxes somewhere…probably backdoor windfall on the big boys like Esso and BP
rebecca: i am trying to understand why you feel the need to insult people with your ‘little box houses’ and buying ‘useless tat’ remarks? all people want is not to be ripped off at the pumps, and as for your comment about ‘move closer to where you work’ have you noticed the housing market at the moment? over inflated prices for properties that just aren’t worth it.
if people should leave the car at home there will be a knock on effect in the supermarkets and throughout the retail industry. i have no problem with people voicing their opinions but come on rebecca stop being so bloody rude to others who just want to put their point across.
Without the money from the profits of the eptrol prices, MP’s wouldn’t be able to pay there mortgages etc with the ridiculous expenses they are allocated. Labour have ruined England and since when have we benefited from taxes? A back bencher in the houses of parliament is on over £100k a year, thats obsurd! maybe you should reduce MP’s salarys instead of fleecing the public, after all they don’t do anything positive for this country.
if the oil and gas are running out in the north sea as they keep telling us why as brown asked for more to be pumped just shows if you say its running out how you can inflate prices like a drought then the water increases
10 garry totally 100% correct
and the others who comment on its about keeping england green and clean well the labour party dont need to pick on the motorist . labour have done there bit by letting all big industry which was not green go out of the country rebecca and labour you have things in common your both a sham
Forget windfall taxes on the like of Esso or BP. Most of their income is outside Britain so the most you could tax would be a billion or two.
They’ve learnt not to have most of their income anywhere where people talk about windfall taxes.
Fuel tax goes into the general pot. The same pot thats paying for a reduction in income tax for some 20+ million workers later this year.
Hey, how about scrapping that reduction instead of adding to fuel duty this year?
For Alister Darling to say he is considering not imposing the 2p per litre tax increase in October fails to comprehend that this annual tax accelerator needs to be scrapped completely. People are suffering serious financial hardship in paying current pump prices just to get to work. It cannot be blamed totally on the world price of crude oil now touching $135 per barrel. The government should reduce the tax per litre by at least 25p. Public transport is totally inadequate to provide an alternate. The bus which my partner uses to get from Sedgley to Coseley station to start her long journey by bus/rail to Solihull has now been reduced from a half hour service to an hourly service (the 545 route). Absolutely pathethic!
They want more cars off the road especially at peak times.They’ve been on about this for years and introduced a congestion charge in London and toll road round here.No one is listening so,determined to get people to listen they are hiking the road tax and fuel.They want to make motoring for the rich again.They want to get all these old bangers off the roads.If you can afford a posh car you’re not bothered about the fuel costs.
Rebecca: I have never tried shooting fish in a barrel. Is this a favourite pastime of your good respectful self???
I’m more of a hook and line person myself but I’m always open to new ideas.
Ok, so the government wants us to give up our cars and use public transport instead.
Why not do exactly what they say and everyone in the country use public transport for one day in the week, say Friday, and then see what happens……
I totally agree with gary!
Its also just another excuse to get money out of people. Its ok for them to put taxes etc up but i don’t see my wage increasing with it!
Cutting fuel duty is only ever going to be a short term fix - we all need to think about the way we live and do business over the longer term, so that we aren’t held in such an economic strangle-hold by either the government, petrol companies or Opec and their ilk. Otherwise we’ll stay caught in this cycle and we’ll still be gnashing our teeth over this in 10, 20, 30 years’ time.
We have been repeatedly ripped off by Labour for years. You only have to look at the council tax bill for Wolverhampton residents over the years. Every year it goes up by 4.5% but do we see an improvement in the services offered no we don’t. So why shouldn’t they do it to the motorist or the small haulier who is trying make employment for local people. The facts are the more Labour increase the fuel prices the liklehood these companies will go under. Therefore increasing our unemployment figures. It brings me back to the the early 80’s with high unemployment. Are Labour trying to beat the record set by Margaret Thatcher? Abolish road tax and put it on petrol that way you don’t get stung twice.
High oil prices are here to stay, so people had better get used to it.
Gordon Brown’s so called agreement to get 50,000 barrels a day out of the North Sea is nothing more than a stunt. There is no new North Sea oil, and production peaked in the late 90s. It won’t make a blind bit of difference to prices since the UK consumes well over a million barrels a day.
Since the late 1980s, we’ve been consuming more oil than has been discovered. We now consume three barrels for every one discovered. Doesn’t take a genius to work out that oil production is going to peak (if it hasn’t already) very soon, then production will start its downward slide, and prices rise even more.
There is little justification for a cut in fuel duty. As prices rise, fuel duty becomes a lower proportion of the cost of fuel. Were a cut to be made, significant cut backs in public expenditure or increases in taxation elsewhere would result.
Fuel cannot yet be too expensive because drivers still insist on wasting it. People drive far larger and more inefficient motors (4×4s, Jags, Mercs etc) than they actually need, because they apparently have to demonstrate their superior status. Well, if you want a status symbol its going to cost. A large proportion of drivers travel at well above the speed limit on all roads, particularly motorways which has a massive impact on fuel economy. A significant number of car journeys are no more than a mile or two, mostly made by car out of laziness. Short journeys also use more fuel because the engine is cold.
Although our public transport system is by no means perfect, the majority of people could stop using their cars for some journeys and walk, cycle, or take the bus/train instead.
Motorists have enjoyed relatively static motoring costs for decades, until very recently. Over the same period, public transport users have had to bear above-inflation cost increases year on year. Its not the motorist who has been ripped off by the government.
I went to Devon yesterday and on the way i filled up at a Stafford road station at 1.22 per litre. In Devon i filled up at an esso station for 1.11 a litre, WHO is ripping us off then If prices are this different then the stations should be made to cap the prices as well as lowered taxes. other country’s seem to be fine without hefty taxes on petrol so why so much here.
I earn 250k a year. Let petrol go to 5.00 per litre and i will have the road to myself
O.k lets get real here.
We all know that fuel prices are way too high and as of today (Friday) we hear that we are actually the cheapest in western europe (as far as diesel is concerned at least)prior to government tax.
I agree that oil companies are ripping us off as much as the government because there is no realistic reason as to why petrol should cost more or less in different parts of the country, but somebody has to make a start and get the ball rolling.
I do not pretend to know a great deal about politics, but I do know that I can no longer afford to drive the 20 miles to work which I have done every day for the past 18 months and I am leaving my job today.
Whilst I have been lucky enough to secure a job within 10 mins walk of where I live, it has taken me 36 months to get out of the temp mainstream and others will not be so lucky.
Fuel and food prices are out of control and drastic measures are being forced upon us to deal with this change as best we can, but nobody seems to want to talk about where we are supposed to get the extra money from.
Repossessions are at an all time high just so that we can eat let alone drive!
Nobody wants to talk about income and if you look at salries for current day job vacancies, they are not much different from 10-15 years ago.
We hear on the news that all of the rich companies are making millions and sometimes billions of pounds profit, but prices still soar and the rich get richer while the poor get pooer (tell me something new, right?)
The government tell us that the oil companies have cut production and demand subsequently outweighs supply.
When a barrell of oil reaches $200, which it will no doubt do if the very wealthy and powerful of this world have their way (and I am not talking about governments here), then the middle classes will no longer exist and the divide between the rich and poor will widen even more. People need to look at the bigger picture.
If the government are forced to slash duty on fuel, it obviously has to be made up elsewhere..any ideas anybody?
We waste millions every year on very pathetic and unworthy projects and in the real world, do we really really have to spend so much money on defence and weapons?
Last year we made a final paymnet to the USA of over 1 billion pounds for a loan which we have been paying back to them evey year since the war.
What has happened to this money now?
Never believe all that you read and only half of what you see.
Regards
Rick
O.k lets get real here.
We all know that fuel prices are way too high and as of today (Friday) we hear that we are actually the cheapest in western europe (as far as diesel is concerned at least)prior to government tax.
I agree that oil companies are ripping us off as much as the government because there is no realistic reason as to why petrol should cost more or less in different parts of the country, but somebody has to make a start and get the ball rolling.
I do not pretend to know a great deal about politics, but I do know that I can no longer afford to drive the 20 miles to work which I have done every day for the past 18 months and I am leaving my job today.
Whilst I have been lucky enough to secure a job within 10 mins walk of where I live, it has taken me 36 months to get out of the temp mainstream and others will not be so lucky.
Fuel and food prices are out of control and drastic measures are being forced upon us to deal with this change as best we can, but nobody seems to want to talk about where we are supposed to get the extra money from.
Repossessions are at an all time high just so that we can eat let alone drive!
Nobody wants to talk about income and if you look at salries for current day job vacancies, they are not much different from 10-15 years ago.
We hear on the news that all of the rich companies are making millions and sometimes billions of pounds profit, but prices still soar and the rich get richer while the poor get pooer (tell me something new, right?)
The government tell us that the oil companies have cut production and demand subsequently outweighs supply.
When a barrell of oil reaches $200, which it will no doubt do if the very wealthy and powerful of this world have their way (and I am not talking about governments here), then the middle classes will no longer exist and the divide between the rich and poor will widen even more. People need to look at the bigger picture.
If the government are forced to slash duty on fuel, it obviously has to be made up elsewhere..any ideas anybody?
We waste millions every year on very pathetic and unworthy projects and in the real world, do we really really have to spend so much money on defence and weapons?
Last year we made a final paymnet to the USA of over 1 billion pounds for a loan which we have been paying back to them every year since the war.
What has happened to this money now?
Never believe all that you read and only half of what you see.
Regards
Rick
Rebecca: I don’t have any problem with people voicing their opinions but come on now Rebecca stop being so bloody rude to others who just want to put their point across. I am disabled and confined to a wheelchair, paraplegic, do you include the likes of my in your sermons? I need a God darn car to be able to get out and the fuel duty is crippling me, don’t smoke or drink and still am finding it difficult. Just filled up with diesel and it cost me £65 and it’s only an automatic Focus.
Inflation Rick only half as much as you need but twice as much as you want
that’s the reason why you earn twice as much as you did when prices were half as much (less maybe a% or so)
do you realise Neanderthals earned less than six pence a week and they got by - oil at the time by comparison was so expenseive that it would have cost the whole world economy to discover refine and distribute
ask yourselves what is your real standard of living and what part does oil play in that - bet you would be surprised get off the whinge and stope expecting things on a plate a life
don’t forget the chinese deserve a life too and they don’t have turkeys for xmas but then they wouldn’t get to vote on xmas if they were chinese
darwin got some much right evolve and rise above it
ow and the planet thing she will be here when we are all gone and will melt into a little ball when the sun frys
what will the price of oil be then?
rebecca please don’t shoot the fish
never expected to have the last word
have a good life
Roger Status..
I used to earn three times the amount I do now and Darwin and you will always be better off than me and not give a hoot.
As I said, lets get real Roger.
Look to the past to see the future, its about to return. Driving and owning your own car is a luxury thats about to disappear for many of us. Get used to it, public transport will improve when there is a greater need for it. With industry at an all time low, export less than 4%, import at 70% +.We need to transport all of thease imported goods around the UK, we depend on them for work and consumption. I think that there are bigger issues to worry about. Its time to stop and re think your personal situation.
IDENTIFI, ADAPT and OVERCOME.
Ok ok where do I start, Rebecca you are partly wrong and the same for anyone else is up for the rise. The only real way to get cars off the road more and make the air greener is to cheapen the public transport or make it free, have simple park and ride systems too. encourage eco friendly cars or low co2 ones. Even encourage more car sharing and that way the Government could lower car tax for thoughs who earn it. But also the Government has to think about people who travel to a holiday in this country or visit family and friends why should people like that have to be taxed higher when its the other abusers.
A recent report out of the USA said that Americans drove their cars 11 billion miles less this march compared with last march.
I think this fact demonstrates that fuel prices do impact motorists making unnecessary journeys.
The government here needs to look at the tax levied at the motorist very carefully if they are serious about caring for the environment.
Annual car tax needs to be scrapped and the cost put on petrol.
Because higher road tax is an incentive to use our vehicles more.(you don’t want to pay £200plus/year to leave your car parked up)
Your car should only cost when used and then people will use them less.
If they scrapped road tax they would save on all the administrative costs associated with it.
The police would save time trying to catch untaxed vehicles at the road side.
All in all scrapping road tax and putting it on the fuel price is fairer, better for the environment and cuts down on police time and admin costs.
I think there will be big changes in this world over the next decade.
Lookin at Britain we need alternatives of car use i.e better buses which aint dominated by local bus monopolys who charge exspensive fares and dominate bus routes where most people have to walk 15mins to catch one. If they operated buses frequantly covering all areas near where people live, day and night including sundays to places where people need to go more will use them. With an all day ticket for say £2. Car use would reduce.
The cost of living is rising but dont see my wages rising.
Where’s the money going? the government has ruined this country. MP’s need to step up to what the country needs and find a life balance for us all.
Labour out!!!!
Si, I totally agree. Rebecca, what is wrong with you? You think the whole country should be urbanised for the sake of public transport which is so crappy it has made life incredibly difficult for everyone using it? There are so many things wrong with what you are saying. Yes, people do moan about the government because the government are supposed to be tackling things we care about and want - that’s what a democracy is.
And I didn’t even learn to drive until last year, I spent more than a decade getting around on public transport and it was so terrible I actually cried on several occasions. Always late or cancelled, can’t cope with a bit of rain/wind/snow/sun, and I had to plan hours ahead just to catch the right train to get five miles away. The amount of times I got stranded in the freezing cold on a station platform or at a bus stop is too many to count, and I refuse to go back to it. That’s why fuel prices are so ridiculous - there is no realistic alternative than getting around by car, especially if you are in a job where you need to get up and go quickly to wherever you are sent.
If there was a realistic alternative, I’m pretty sure I would save the money and not have bought my car, but at the moment, it is my pride and joy for being a million times more reliable than a train.
i work 17 miles away for the NHS if i had to use public transport it would take me around 4 hours to get to work and even longer to get home. so a car is the only way to get there. i pay around 20% of my wages on petrol. i only have a 1.0 litre car. its ok to say that people should use public transport but people need to also realise that public transport isnt an option for some people
also on the point why this government seems to need to charge so much tax compared to other countries then look at the amount of benefits paid out to people who get so much in benefits they would lose out if they actually went to work. if the government stopped inviting people into our country for a free ride then they wouldnt need to make so much revenue from taxes
Dear Rebecca,
I agree with Gary.
Although you made some good points, they are insulting. You say to move near where you work.
What if your job is the next town over??
Instead of wasteing your time and energy complaining to one another about the Fuel Prices,etc, etc,it won`t make a scrap of difference to any of you in the long run if people don`t get of their butts and make your views known to the people you all elected to represent you in Parliment. It`s a favourite pastime of this country`s population, moaning to one another about everything, and the “I`m alright Jack” brigade who take it upon themselves to speak for th wider population. You all will never get results unless you make your complaints to the right people, the ones at the top, they are supposed to be our servants and not our masters. Make sure you let this Government know that they can be replaced in another one and a half or two years if they don`t pay attention to the citizens of this country, if they keep ignoring us when we speak. Empower yourself and speakup instead of having a dig at each other, it won`t make any difference to the powers that be, it just makes their job of taking all your hard earned money an easy task.