I wonder can we get the monopolies commission onto this. The government clearly have a monopoly on fuel pricing due to their taxation. Surely thats got to be illegal as it is basically price fixing ?

 

Yes Stevie, we need a fair system.

so if there was no such thing as Road Tax, or Insurance premium tax And the ONLY thing that was taxed was fuel that would be fair.

The more mileage you do, and the more fuel you buy, the more tax you pay by virtue of using your car. no mess no fuss.

someone who does 20,000 miles per year would pay double in tax to someone who did 10,000 miles per year, by virtue of doing twice the mileage.

The point I made about a Tax disc style certificate to display is that the DVLA has on record if a car is insured and MOT'd (and therefore legal to be on the road).

how many uninsured cunts are out there who dont give a shite, causing everyones premiums to go up when they cause accidents...

im not arguing with you mate. We all want the same thing....a fair deal!

 

Vehicle registration is a different matter, and would still exist. There isnt any need to pay for it separately.

And all this shit about un-insured drivers putting premiums up. It is absolute balls. They claim it adds maybe Ł30 to everyones premium. Big fucking deal, I pay around Ł2k to insure my car and van !! Ł30 is a drop in the ocean.

The reason insurance is so dear, is because they are robbing scummy bastards and because it's a legal requirement, we have little choice but to pay. The addition of IPT just adds insult to injury !
Insurance companies bend over backwards to throw money at fraudulent claimants. And then when a legitimate claim is made, they try everything they can to avoid paying out.

I dont know one single person who has made a genuine claim, and the process has been smooth or simple for them. It's always a nightmare with them trying to wriggle out of paying.

I know of cases where fraudsters have made claims, and the insurers have paid out before the bloody car owner knew anything about it !! First they knew was their renewal had went through the roof !

 

PS.

It was the Conservative government who introduced a policy called the "fuel scale escalator" in the 1993 Budget. Norman Lamont was chancellor then I think!

this was a policy that increased the tax duty on fuel above the rate of inflation regardless of economic conditions. Bunch of theives!!!

 

Absolutely....although wasnt it earlier than that ?

But every subsequent government has retained it...and seemingly added more tax on top.

 

I don't know of an insurer anywhere who rushes to pay out on any claim, fraudulent or otherwise.
I haven't claimed on car insurance but we claimed on our house insurance recently and I have to say Direct Line were first class.

As for including basic third party insurance in a future fuel tax - no thanks. Having two insurers arguing over liability is bad enough - throw in another covering third party risks and nothing will ever get sorted in a sensible timeframe.

I already grudge paying extra for uninsured motorists though both the extra on my premium plus the general taxation that goes to cover innocent victims of uninsured drivers, criminal injuries compensation etc.

So I don't want to also pay more for silly wee laddies who think they know how to drive their shitty cars that cost them nothing and that they have no interest or pride in.

 

Stevie,

i think (but i might be wrong) that the fuel price escalator was in place every year from 1993 - 2007/2008. think old chancellor 'Captain Darling' suspended it.
The real kick in the teeth is the VAT on the enforced duty rises as well, so you get hit twice.

Im sure if it hadn't of existed, we'd be paying about 80/90p per litre (or a little less) now insead of Ł1.25. i paid Ł1.35 today for BP ultimate. Shocking, I walked away feeling like I'd been mugged! lol

 

I only work 3 miles from home so all short journeys and i'm getting up to 35mpg in the 115pd chipped Golf GTTDi - is due a service but i think it's about right with the increase in fuel - was around 45mpg before again only for short trips - motorway driving is different again.

I wanted to get another Subaru for the 4x4 i miss in the winter months but couldn't even dream of it with the price of running, insurance and the other necessities so there i am priced away from a big powerful vehicle.

 

buy a bike and don't forget to carry your organ donor card with you at all times

buying a new car and you are a mug

road tax isn't ringfenced, like every other tax it goes into a central pot to pay for imigrants and politicians second homes and coppers who's broken their shoelaces

how easy would it be to simply ringfence all NI towards going to the nhs like it's supposed to?

how easy would it be to ringfence all the motoring taxes towards getting our roads fixed?

how easy would it be to have our council tax going towards cleaning the streets and collecting rubish and keeping libraries and swimming pools open?

but that's sensible thinking and it would make sense, which is why no one wants to do it

if you had road tax going towards fixing the roads, you wouldn't need the councils fixing the roads in march/april to spend all their money they've got locked up for the rest of the eyar, you wouldn't need to pay so much council tax, it's a win win situation

 

i 2nd that !

 

one (not necessarilry you, it depends on your line of work) can walk to work as a necessity like people used to. it's just that over the last century cheap motoring has enabled people to live further away from work and commute and we've all got used to it and expect it.

you can also share a bus or train (which admittedly are too expensive, but that's another argument) if you only have a basic need to get somewhere. as i say, having a car all to yourself is a luxury.

 

i drive the 3 or 4 minutes to work every morning and my mrs takes 1 kid to school, another to nursery and then she goes to work

in my case i use my van for work so it need to take it

there is no way for my mrs to get both kids to where they need to be and get to work in the 30 minutes she's got, sometimes it takes her longer and she's late for work which means she gets into trouble for that

so for us, getting a small car that has 4 doors and seats big enough to get child seats in and that was reliable and had small running costs was esential

i can't really justify putting the sierra back on the road seeing as it does about 150 miles to a tank so my back up motor is the mondeo, which we hardly ever use nowadays because that does about 18 mpg

 

If the planet is in danger then I very much doubt that our tiny little island is a major contributor to the damage being caused. Instead we are just funding our wasteful government's expensive lifestyle and costly ill informed mistakes.

 

Mate of mine used to run a shed of a pug 205 diesel and ran it on a blend of diesel and vegetable oil that he bought from the supermarket. It was insured third party and cos he had loadsa no claims it cost him hardly anything. The tuned skyline was kept in the garage for weekend abuse.

 

fuck em all while ive got the money in my pocket ill spend it fueling cossy up.

 

watch from 13:10.. Says it all really

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00xlt3v

 

As I said...in one instance they had paid out to the fraudster before the car's owner knew anything about it !!!

They will settle quickly to a claimant if they think they can save a few quid by not going to court. Except when fraudsters are involved, they know this and it makes it far easier for them to claim, as they know they can get a quick payout and run.

I know of several other instances where friends have been in minor accidents, where blame seems to have been twisted about and once again, despite the innocent party telling the insurers of the fraudulent claim. Yep, they paid out gladly.

And the most annoying bit is, the innocent party doesnt even have a say in who the insurance pay out to.

 

You have very high expectations of public transport. For a few yes, it might work. For the majority, nope.

Very few people for a variety of reasons live close to their work. In a city environment, people can simply be priced out of living nearby.
Some choose not to because some city's are shitholes.

And transport in some cities is just plain crap.

 

yep spot on!

 

The planet is in no danger whatsoever. It will be around long after any human.

What all this BS propoganda is supposed to suggest, is the human race is at risk.

And yes it is at risk big time. And the biggest issue we will have to deal with, is feeding ourselves on the overpopulated planet.

They need to start introducing baby taxes and stop giving handouts to families with 500 kids.

If you cant afford to have children, then dont.

 

it's clear that you don't see personal transport as a luxury, but the fact remains that it is. warmth, shelter and food are necessities, everything else is a luxury. simple as that.

the majority of people don't live close enough to work to walk as historically personal transport has been cheap enough to enable them not to.

 

I used to work as an electrician. Public transport would go nowhere I needed or when i needed, and it would be difficult to carry tools etc on a bus.
A luxury ? no, essential.

I now do courier work. Again, not a luxury.

Public transport would be useless for about 90% of other journeys I make regardless of cost. ( unless you pay a taxi, but then that may as well be a luxury )

Even on occasion when I had been working at the same location for some time, public transport still couldnt have got me to work on time unless I drove several miles to a closer bus route, but then that is defeating the purpose of public transport. But that still didnt resolve the tools issue.

 

'Public transport' is only reliable where the private companies who provide said service see a business need to provide a reliable service

Eg:
You may see a 5 or 10 minute bus service on a busy inner city route, where there is 'demand' for the service.
go to more rural areas and you'll be lucky to get an hourly service, because its not 'cost effective' to operate a 5 or 10 minute service in that rural area.

how the hell people who live in rural areas are supposed to use public tranport instead of their cars is rediculous
If regulated properly, more profitable routes should subsidise providing good services in more rural areas to give a greater choice, (if and it is a big if) people are to be expected to see public transport as a viable alternative.

 

the local bus service goes a little like this:

the route is put out to tender for a certain length of time, 1 year, 2 years, 5 years, etc and then bids are submitted by various bus companies as to how much they will charge for the route, what buses they will be running, how often the service will run during the day, peak hours, night routes, how many buses they will put on stand by in case of mechanical failure, turn around times at either end of the route, how many stops they will service, etc

the council they offer the tender to said company and they run their service with the proviso that the route will have 1% of it's service inspected at any one time and any fares that have been lost will considered 1% of the total revenue lost across that service at that time so the company that's running the service will cover the rest of the cost, so if 5 people get done for fare evasion in one day it is accepted that across the board there are 500 people dodging fares, and at Ł2 a pop that's a tenner's worth of fares being dodged so the company will be fined Ł1,000

in the same way, the cost of the route is worked out in Ł per mile so for every mile that the service is not run, they will return 5 times that amount of money for lose of service to the council

some routes will keep the revenue taken while others have to pay that back to the council

which is why some routes will be very well catered for and some will not exist as the council deem them too costly to run, which explains why rural routes suffer terribly and busy commuter routes are highly over subscribed

 

As it is...motorists do subsidise most forms of public transport already. Most couldnt stand on their own feet without it.

For anything other than a major city and perhaps 5-10miles beyond, public transport will rarely be a viable option.

 

Exactly Stevieturbo,

Beyond the major city's public transport is a joke, so there isn't a viable, reliable alternative to using the car.

What is also a complete and utter piss-take IMHO is councils re designing city centres under the guise of 'traffic calming' or 'pedestrian friendly' measures.
It should really be called 'congestion creating' 'car hating' schemes, purely to force us out of our cars onto un-reliable, smelly, over crowded (at times) public transport.

Eg, putting in a chicane here, putting a bus lane there, halving the roadspace for cars, shortening light sequences, creating longer queues......

I thin that if everyone in the country went out tomorrow and left their cars at home and used buses, trains etc, the whole lot would collapse under the strain.

Sorry I for one, like yourself, I suspect, will cling on until the bitter end to keep using a car...

 

But that wasnt in a recession, the public could afford it then.

 

TBH I have a theory where following the scrappage scheme to get people buying brand new cars, then following manufacturers brand new cars all either being green or electronic (ferrari using stop-start for fucks sake!!!), i believe the government have upped fuel tax etc to a high point to persuade people to buy these new cars to save money, when what they are really doing is supporting the governments scrappage scheme by buying new cars and getting themselves futher into debt.

It has advantages for car enthusiasts, that if you can afford it, you can delve into the wonder that is big engined cars that are bad on fuel.

e6* 730d = Ł15k average
e6* 760iL = Ł8k average.

 

that's business transport - i said personal transport

 

Courier is business, yes.

Electrician was not. It was up to me to provide my own transport to and from site, and I didnt get a bean for it.

It maybe isnt right, but that's how it was.

 

maybe, Twoblacklines, but 1n 1993, at introduction the fuel price escalator was set to increase fuel by 5% above the rate of inflation, this was increased to 6%. By 2006 it was up to 8% above the rate of inflation.
So, for arguments sake, if the rate of inflation was 2% in 2006, the fuel duty was increased by 10%.

just because in a boom, people could afford to pay more, doesnt neccessarilly mean that the cost should have been artifically massaged to increase at a higher rate than the rises of costs in the rest of the economy

and some people wonder why we are paying the highest price for fuel anywhere in the world......

 

And having high fuel prices serves no useful purpose whatsoever.

higher fuel prices = higher cost of everything.
higher fuel prices mean the police service costs more. Fire service costs more, Ambulance service costs more.

It has a knock on effect on everything as we are absolutely reliant on transport for our way of life.

If fuel taxation was reduced, the cost everything would fall, businesses could be far more competitive, essential services would cost far less to run. In short, our economy could thrive.

Then income tax, or business taxes could rise, to recoup some of the lost revenue from fuel taxes. But there could be far more profitable businesses and exporters which would be great for everywhere in the UK.

People's own personal money would go much further as essential items could cost much less ( fuel being one )

There really is no sensible or just argument for having such high fuel prices, when oil in reality is still pretty cheap.

 

Sorry nick,I don't really "get" that statement?your saying that it's ok to use a car for work purposes yet when not working,there are alternatives I.e public transport,although IMO fuel costs aside ( which are minimal compared to pt)the majority of fixed costs (tax,Mot,insurance,servicing,repairs) are already covered in your work costs,therefore meaning pt actually costs more.

Where I live,5-6 miles out of the city,the bus service is 3-4 buses per DAY!the earliest being 730am latest being 10 at night meaning it only really caters for those working office hours,not shiftwork as I did.

In fact,taxi or pedal/foot power aside,there was no possible way to get into work at 6am.

To mac the op,as posted above,cbt,I'd get a 125 scooter,bit more storage then,80mpg easily,Ł15 tax,Ł100 or less insurance,throw it away when it breaks.get up your scrappy/t'internet as they often get plastics broken/stolen etc and are literally worthless then.stick to the big 4 manufacturers and I reckon you'll get a year old model for under Ł700,job jobbed!!!!

Don't forget good waterproofs and a helmet!!!

 

quite simply we all have the prevous government to thank for all of this. The country is billions of pounds in debt due to the ridiculous benefit system,poor spending, immigration, foreign aid and of course the banks. I think people would be quite surprised who gordon brown was borrowing the money off (overseas insurance companies, chinease government and investors etc). I completely understand that any government that came into power after the bullshit we got from labour will be unpopular, but cuts need to be made and extra revenue needs to be created. If the country became like Greece where we were considered high risk investment (this is worst case scenario) then expect things to get 100x worse. We export few things and british companies and farmers have had little support so as a country we buy in far too many things we could be making ourselves. Im sure the bankers during the recession were well looked after, despite the sheer greed of buying bad debts from abroad, we are now paying for there mistakes. Prices will rise, as will petrol and unfortunatly the nation will have to continue paying these in order for our debts to be cleared. Its a shame not everyone is aware of why this is all happening.

 

i'm not saying anything is ok or not, you are all adults that make your own minds up about things. i'm just pointing out an alternative opinion.

where i grew up in a small village in norfolk, there were 2 buses a week. at one time, that was enough as the small shops in the village (there used to be a butchers, grocers and general store, in a village of <500 people). as time has gone on, those small shops have gone out of business as people could afford to drive into towns to go to supermarkets.

had the cost of a car been too high back then, perhaps those shops would still be there and people would be living and shopping locally. as it is, due to the cheap cost of running a motor car (and road freight compared to rail and boat etc), the entire way the whole country now lives and functions has changed. you can't deny that we've all set ourselves up for it, and now we have to pay for it.

 

Regarding the original question of best way forward, I'm thinking of producing my own Bio-Diesel. The equipment costs less than 800 quid inc VAT and the first 2499 litres produced are fuel duty free.
Anything above the first 2500 litres is taxed about 28p per litre.

If you don't like paying over inflated duty, then this seems like the easiest way forward, plus it's a cleaner fuel than mineral diesel and a standard diesel car doesn't require any modification to use bio-diesel

 

100% agree.

 

If I worked within about 20 miles of where I lived I would make an eletric car, cost about 1p a mile to run!

 

alternatively, if one is so concerned about travel cost one could 'get on yer bike' and cycle.

 

Interesting topic came up the other day.

Hold a big protest next year, on April 29th in London.

That should get a lot of publicity !!