I hear Mr Bush was asking Americans not to buy gas if they did not need it. I'm sure Americans are not that stupid, I mean what else are you actually going to do with the petrol other than put it in the gas tank? (Drink it I suppose.) What Mr Bush should be saying is that Americans need to be heavily taxed if they insist in driving around in V8, 4.5L engined 2

p.s. Furby owners - why not go buy some veggie oil from your local supermarket instead?

Well fuel cost is a very significant outgoing each month for me, I will be attempting to claim back some of it somehow via the company, but it's not looking too great :(

What irritates me is the way the tax is presented - call it 90%. Were it income tax or VAT it would be presented as a percentage of cost before tax, in which case it would be almost 400% - instead with this (and tobacco) the government says tax is 90% (or whatever) and although it sounds horriffic, it's nowhere near the true figure.

I'll be leaving the UK soon all being well, I urge you all to consider doing the same. Once the government is left with only layabouts claiming dole and horrific taxes meaning nobody drives they'll be able to rest safe in the knowledge that they collectively f*cked the greatest nation on earth over a few short decades.

I saw my first 99.9p fuel station last night. So I quickly filled up with 96.9p at a Texaco on my way home. I put

Strangely enough' date=' diesel here has been cut form 94.9 to 92.9 in the last few days.

Personally I don't think whatever we do is going to help. Oil required everywhere and demand is up so prices are rising. Another protest won't really help, IMHO, it's almost cost price, and you cut tax they will claim it back off motorists in another way anyway to make the books balance.

Personally, we need alternative fuels quickly and sustainable transport solutions. Road traffic is still increasing outside the CC zone in London and that can't go on.[/quote']

Alternative fuels will still be taxed heavly.. I remember when diesel was cheaper than petrol, with the massive increase in sales of diesels hey presto

there was a decline in tax revenue,, so lets put the cost of diesel up for enviromental reasons...

Just back from Prague where nearly all the city is covered by trams or the metro or buses... these run very regular and you could survive without using a car.....

The trouble is the UK gov will not spend the huge amounts to correctly update the rail/public transport systems.. Moving freight to overnight trains

instead of clogging the roads... Making roads and junctions that were logical

and prevented the unessacary queues from drivers joining before they should or at the last minute...

Maintaining roads to a higher standard, quicker, again to reduce long term roadworks, and right first time instead of having to redo them again after 6 months.. ( M6 Thelwall Viaduct for example!! )

Better driver training = better lane discipline.....

Crude oil pricing is set by OPEC who can restrict supply to get the markets

to work there way,,, UK gov benefits due to higher revenue... Fuel companies are making billions in profits.. Those who suffer all of us....

dazz

Further on from my post about filling up at 96.9p, that was at 7am, I drove past again at about 3pm and its up to 99.9p. Great.

Alternative fuels will still be taxed heavly.. I remember when diesel was cheaper than petrol' date=' with the massive increase in sales of diesels hey presto

there was a decline in tax revenue,, so lets put the cost of diesel up for enviromental reasons...

Just back from Prague where nearly all the city is covered by trams or the metro or buses... these run very regular and you could survive without using a car.....

The trouble is the UK gov will not spend the huge amounts to correctly update the rail/public transport systems.. Moving freight to overnight trains

instead of clogging the roads... Making roads and junctions that were logical

and prevented the unessacary queues from drivers joining before they should or at the last minute...

Maintaining roads to a higher standard, quicker, again to reduce long term roadworks, and right first time instead of having to redo them again after 6 months.. ( M6 Thelwall Viaduct for example!! )

Better driver training = better lane discipline.....

Crude oil pricing is set by OPEC who can restrict supply to get the markets

to work there way,,, UK gov benefits due to higher revenue... Fuel companies are making billions in profits.. Those who suffer all of us....

dazz[/quote']

Traffic is screwed in this country as you have pen-pushers running councils not qualified traffic engineers any more. You also have a huge compensation culture meaning on average

Hmm, not bad prices in the UAE. Did a currency conversion on Mil's petrol figure

6.25 AED United Arab Emirates Dirhams = 0.922765 GBP United Kingdom Pounds, thats around the same price for a whole gallon as we are paying per litre.

Traffic is screwed in this country as you have pen-pushers running councils not qualified traffic engineers any more

**insert family fortunes wrong buzzer**

I think you'll find that the councils ARE qualified. Council officers (like myself) are more than competent. If you feel you could design road improvements whilst hitting a brick wall of politics be my guest...

...it doesn't help of course that the funding isn't great...

...please consider the above before you make such a sweeping comment.

I for one think that a cap of fuel duty should be imposed as i feel it's thouroughly unfair that as the fuel price goes up by a small amount, the tax is increasing by a much larger amount every time.

MPM

LG Transportation Engineer

Hmm' date=' not bad prices in the UAE. Did a currency conversion on Mil's petrol figure

6.25 AED United Arab Emirates Dirhams = 0.922765 GBP United Kingdom Pounds, thats around the same price for a whole gallon as we are paying per litre.[/quote']

Group buy anyone....hire a tanker

Group buy anyone....hire a tanker

You could just go above the Superb idea and buy one for us?

**insert family fortunes wrong buzzer**

I think you'll find that the councils ARE qualified. Council officers (like myself) are more than competent. If you feel you could design road improvements whilst hitting a brick wall of politics be my guest...

...it doesn't help of course that the funding isn't great...

...please consider the above before you make such a sweeping comment.

I for one think that a cap of fuel duty should be imposed as i feel it's thouroughly unfair that as the fuel price goes up by a small amount' date=' the tax is increasing by a much larger amount every time.

MPM

LG Transportation Engineer[/quote']

Don't take the comments the wrong way. I said the people running councils were pen-pushers not the people designing the things! In ye olde days, traffic engineers, with CEng status made the decisions, and took the consequences. Now it's taken from him by the pen-pushers above him! Unfortunatly the number of fully qualified or graduate engineers in councils is declining, up here anyway. That doesn't help, as there are too many staff now!

The money is there, when they want it to be, you just have to spin it to make them want to do it....

Not naming council names, but it took over 3 years for us to do signal timings on a roundabout. Once they finally agreed what the hell they were up to I did it in 2 days but then they were footing the bill....

Hmm' date=' not bad prices in the UAE. Did a currency conversion on Mil's petrol figure

6.25 AED United Arab Emirates Dirhams = 0.922765 GBP United Kingdom Pounds, thats around the same price for a whole gallon as we are paying per litre.[/quote']

You may think so, but at the end of the day, the cost of fuel is proportional to the amount of income of the average employed person. 32% is quite a rise...so if we do it your way, instead of paying 0.922756 GBP per litre, you will pay 1.36GBP per litre...quite a huge difference isn't it...

From saying this, it is understandable the average income here is relatively lower than in the UK (the avg salary is something like GBP900 there IIRC, here it's AED6000...quite a difference)...

Plus we've had rent hikes of over 25%...prices just keep going higher and higher...we have over a hundred thousand taxis all over the country...their prices will have to go up now...at least with the rise in fuel prices loners won't be driving on their own so much and will make use of carpools finally...traffic is sooooooooooooooo bad here...or was....

The recent hurricane shut down oil production in the Gulf of Mexico for 3 days. According to news reports at least 20 rigs have either been wiped out or been severely damaged.

less oil produced= high prices

I don't have any inside knowledge, but...

From what I understand, there hasn't been that much damage. Most of the offshore oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico are west of the hurricane's storm track.

And the 8 or 9 refineries that were shut down... I think most of them should be restarted, at least partially, in a couple weeks. One problem, probably not mentioned often, is that many of the refinery and oilrig workers probably lost their homes. So finding a place for their families is probably their top priority, going back to work necessarily comes in second. I imagine the companies are doing all they can for the workers and their families.

Some good may come from this, if it spurs the oil companies and the governments in the industrial countries to build more refineries. Environmental restrictions have prevented the building of refineries in the US. Perhaps the environmental lobbyists will lose some of their power to block the building of new refineries.

One of the main reasons that diesel prices have and are continuing to rise at a faster rate is because the refineries that crack the raw light crude are running at full capacity. The rapid rise in the number of diesel cars on the road has not been matched to investment by oil co.s in diesel refinement facilities... we then get the usual situation of demand for limited quantities = price inflation.

Add to the above the political issues in Iran, Iraq etc. as well as Katrina and you have some very heavy upwards price pressure. OPEC attempt to control oil prices by monitoring and adjusting the amount of oil available on the markets, but they don't control all oil production. Whilst OPEC had set a target of $25-30 a barrel for oil, this has been shot out of the window due to the above. This is particularly prevalant on the price of oil being paid on the derivatives markets eg. 3-6month future trades, where $70 a barrel was first reached. Donations to the US from Europe are expected to reduce prices by a few dollars, so it is our interests to share the reserves that we have over here to soften the blow, after all, this is what oil reserves are for. See link for more info: http://uk.news.yahoo.com//02092005/325/europe-pour-oil-market-tame-prices.html

In relation to UK fuel duty - there's definately a case that the government should call it what it is, ie. 400%! We do pay a lot for our fuel, but we don't pay road tolls on all main roads... yet :confused: The thing is, if we reduce tax on fuel, it inadvertently has to come from somewhere else eg. council tax, a rise in VAT etc. to fund government projects (questionable value for money in some cases). At least we don't live in Sweden where overall taxation is something silly like 50%! Top tip though... heating oil (for your central heating) costs something like 16p a litre, and diesels can run on it although don't know how well....

Further on from my post about filling up at 96.9p, that was at 7am, I drove past again at about 3pm and its up to 99.9p. Great.

I should have filled up yesterday too when it was 96.9p! Now 97.9p :(

Chris

One of the main reasons that diesel prices have and are continuing to rise at a faster rate is because the refineries that crack the raw light crude are running at full capacity. The rapid rise in the number of diesel cars on the road has not been matched to investment by oil co.s in diesel refinement facilities... we then get the usual situation of demand for limited quantities = price inflation.

Add to the above the political issues in Iran' date=' Iraq etc. as well as Katrina and you have some very heavy upwards price pressure. OPEC attempt to control oil prices by monitoring and adjusting the amount of oil available on the markets, but they don't control all oil production. Whilst OPEC had set a target of $25-30 a barrel for oil, this has been shot out of the window due to the above. This is particularly prevalant on the price of oil being paid on the derivatives markets eg. 3-6month future trades, where $70 a barrel was first reached. Donations to the US from Europe are expected to reduce prices by a few dollars, so it is our interests to share the reserves that we have over here to soften the blow, after all, this is what oil reserves are for. See link for more info: [url']http://uk.news.yahoo.com//02092005/325/europe-pour-oil-market-tame-prices.html[/url]

In relation to UK fuel duty - there's definately a case that the government should call it what it is, ie. 400%! We do pay a lot for our fuel, but we don't pay road tolls on all main roads... yet :confused: The thing is, if we reduce tax on fuel, it inadvertently has to come from somewhere else eg. council tax, a rise in VAT etc. to fund government projects (questionable value for money in some cases). At least we don't live in Sweden where overall taxation is something silly like 50%! Top tip though... heating oil (for your central heating) costs something like 16p a litre, and diesels can run on it although don't know how well....

You cheeky monkey You work for the oil industry don't you....you work undercover don't you..

Dropped enough fuel to get from Bracknell to Oxford as I had to go there anyway - 95.9p/liter for diesel there, whereas it's 98.9p/liter in Bracknell.

Considering I'm doing 800 miles/week easily I've reduced my top speed a fair bit to get that 40-50 mpg figure :(

It's also a reason for me to be on the FMIC GB as during the summer my MPG dropped by at least 5 mpg. With the kind of fuel cost we're looking at that is becoming significant (not quite going to cover the FMIC, but )

It's also a reason for me to be on the FMIC GB as during the summer my MPG dropped by at least 5 mpg. With the kind of fuel cost we're looking at that is becoming significant (not quite going to cover the FMIC, but )

Now that's the most twisted alibi yet. Good man! I like your thinking!!!

A mate's uncle is in charge of traffic strategy (or something equally useless) in my local council and.. Oh, that's right, he doesn't have a driving license.

No disrespect to any individuals, but as long as councils are run by lefties and do-gooders there will never be any progress. The fact is, I drive 100 miles a day to contribute a damn site more to this country's economy than anyone on a bus does (bound to be exceptions I know), yet I am the bad guy. We're driving our cars because we're going to work, to pay tax; not for fun like the gov't would have you believe.

If you don't drive, you aren't qualified to make decisions about roads (Transport Secretary before this one didn't drive IIRC) as far as I'm concerned.

Sack them all and replace them with people who aren't left-wing idiots and idealists Mode>

So there we go, no facts just a spleen thoroughly vented

Public transport is encouraged in the NHS. Shame the bus service does not 'work' during weekends and bank holidays, in the sense that SWMBO would arrive hours late and would be unable to leave. Guess what - they recommend using a taxi (!!!). Yeah right, work for 12 hour shift and give the proceeds of around half of that to the taxi driver? Crazy talk.

Note I am not having a go at taxi drivers for charging what they charge, they're are a business and the fuel & licensing cost must be scary.

Alternative is to take the car. Then you get charged for parking for 12 hours.... T*ssers. How about allowing staff to park for free when you underpay them?

It all seems rather odd to me. What surprises me most though is how things that are so blatently obvious as 'it aint gonna work in real life' still get done.

For example we had a T-junction in A'don. Wasn't a problem, a little hard to get out from the estate onto the road though when it was busy.

Suggested solutions:

1. Traffic lights, combined with pedestrian crossing and a turning-left lane with light.

2. Mini-roundabout.

First option was expensive so option 2 was chosen. Two deaths later... Hmm let's see, this is worse than before, let's rip it all out again, put a speedbump in near it, see if that works. Leave the mini-roundabout tho...

Another person got badly injured, seem to remember it was a biker that slid off the speed bump as he was forced to brake (too) hard to try and avoid yet another idiot who cant drive on roundabouts and 'forgot' to give way to the motorcyclist.

Then the whole lot was redone. Now it's back to being a T-junction, with lights as per the original idea. Just wondering how much council tax could have been saved had it been done properly in the first place, and whether those lives would have been spared. Makes me very

I'd love to meet the guy responsible for roads in Gateshead. He's on a mission to replace every rouundabout with traffic lights, or put traffic lights on roundabouts. It's like they want to take all decision making away from drivers. I know of one set of lights very near to where i live where you get a full 8 seconds of green for every 2 minutes plus of red. It's an absolute nightmare at rush hour. We're getting a lot of new bus lanes too. I've seen one that's about 20 yards long. What a waste of road space...

A mate's uncle is in charge of traffic strategy (or something equally useless) in my local council and.. Oh' date=' that's right, he doesn't have a driving license.

No disrespect to any individuals, but as long as councils are run by lefties and do-gooders there will never be any progress. The fact is, I drive 100 miles a day to contribute a damn site more to this country's economy than anyone on a bus does (bound to be exceptions I know), yet I am the bad guy. We're driving our cars because we're going to work, to pay tax; not for fun like the gov't would have you believe.

If you don't drive, you aren't qualified to make decisions about roads (Transport Secretary before this one didn't drive IIRC) as far as I'm concerned.

Sack them all and replace them with people who aren't left-wing idiots and idealists

Mode>

So there we go, no facts just a spleen thoroughly vented [/quote']

Don't want to say this but then we are back to the real problem. Your driving 100 miles to work. Why not live closer? I guess thats because housing in this country is too expensive! We have turned to the 'USA commuter society'. I recently read the Westtrans/SPT report on all transport in Strathclyde and the way forward. The diagram on commuter area for Glasgow is the interesting one. In 1991, the furthest away from Glasgow people were willing to commute was on average 12-15 miles. Now? Over 30 miles. That is why we are having major problems.

The fact that you commute 100 miles is absolutely shocking. I know you need to work but 100 miles. Jeeze. I commute 2 miles to my work, and the furthest I have ever worked from home was 10 miles away!

Your comment on the bus out of line. Bound to be exceptions? More than you'd believe! 20% of people commute to Central Glasgow on Bus, more than rail, and subway put together! Everyone in our society plays an important role, and trust me without the refuse collector that commutes on the bus you'd be royally screwed.

As for not driving and making decisions on roads hmm- not always true!

The fact remains this- if we all made 1 car trip a week by a different method, we'd cut traffic by 10%.

I'd love to meet the guy responsible for roads in Gateshead. He's on a mission to replace every rouundabout with traffic lights, or put traffic lights on roundabouts. It's like they want to take all decision making away from drivers. I know of one set of lights very near to where i live where you get a full 8 seconds of green for every 2 minutes plus of red. It's an absolute nightmare at rush hour. We're getting a lot of new bus lanes too. I've seen one that's about 20 yards long. What a waste of road space...

As for 20 yard bus lanes, yep waste of time.

As for Roundabouts replacement, unfortunatly traffic has increased too much. It cannot go on simply! When traffic gets shocking thats all you can do to regulate flow, but 8 seconds for 2 minutes- I designed a system that gave 12 seconds to right turners every 2 minutes. Software said it was fine so I went with it...

I recently re-timed a shed load of lights and it was shocking how so many of them failed to work as traffic has increased since 1998 when they were done! It was very very very difficult, most of the time a pedestrian phase killed it.