I noticed as I drove into work this morning that the garage nearest the office is now charging 94.9p for a litre of Diesel.
This is extortionate, but I suspect that somewhere out there petrol stations have already crossed the “pound a litre” mark. This is all the governments fault – not only did they already tax the motorist excessively “to drive people onto public transport” – they have failed to provide a cheap, reliable public transport system that can take people where they need to go, when they need to go there in a timely and efficient manner.
They then compounded the problem by joining the USA in the invasion of Iraq, which destablised the political situation in the middle-east, driving oil prices, and hence fuel tax revenue ever higher.
Then the oil companies take their cut, posting record profits in the process, and who’s paying for all this – that’s right, it’s us, the motorist who uses the car because there’s no practical alternative.
It’s time to start those rolling blockades on the motorways, blockade the depots again – we need to remind the government that it can’t walk all over the people who voted it in (I have to say at this point that I didn’t vote Labour because of the illegal invasion of Iraq and the ever increasing fuel prices) – the government needs to listen to the people – not ignore us like they usually do.
How can we possibly be maintaining inflation at the levels the Government claims we are when fuel prices are rocketing by around 10 percent a year – according to the AA, average prices for Diesel in June 2003 were 77.2p, June 2004 was 82.8p – now they are 90.2p for the same litre of Diesel.
5 Years ago the country ground to a halt becuase of Government Policy and oil company profiteering – it’s time for this to happen again.
Remember this:
For every £50 you put in your tank, you’re giving the government £37 in tax
Online Protest Petition
http://www.fuelprotest.com/
RUF Forums
http://www.fuelprotest.com/forum.php
Less Tax On Fuel
http://www.lesstaxonfuel.co.uk/
Fuel Forum
http://www.fuelforum.co.uk/index.shtml
AA Fuel Price Surveys
http://www.theaa.com/allaboutcars/fuel/index.html
Tom
Similar story in London – Uncle Ken creates the congestion charge to persuade people onto public transport. Then he puts up the bus fares!
Admittedly they’re not as expensive as in many areas of the country, but going from £1.00 to £1.20 is still quite a leap.
From September, Under 16s will be able to travel on London buses for free (great news, wish they had done that a few years ago!). Couldn’t the rest of us get something too? It’s stupid that its cheaper for me to drive into places like Surbiton than catch the bus!
Well, here in Cardiff, it’s around £1.60 an hour to park in town, £2.70 for a return bus, £3 for the park-and-ride, plus the fuel to actually get into town or to the P+R site (say, £1.50) bus is cheaper – but it’s still expensive!
These days I avoid Cardiff city as much as possible – the cost of going shopping is just too prohibitive – I tend to go to “out-of-town” places where the parking is free
At the end of the day, the government knows people have to travel, so high travel costs are a stealth tax – whether it’s buses, driving, parking, congestion charges, road tolls – it’s just more ways for the government to tax us.
Personally, I don’t mind too much if public transport is expensive, PROVIDING it is reliable and comfortable. If the Government really want us to leave the car on the driveway and catch a bus to work, they have to improve the service.
The amount of delays in the bus and train network is attrocious. As I said in a post on my blog, other countries manage to keep it all together.
During my recent holiday to Italy, I used the train a fair bit. One morning, it was delayed by an hour – but station staff were updating waiting passengers regularly and being completely honest about the delay. The folowing day, it was front page news in the local paper, and from what I could understand, the rail network had published an apology in the paper. This is unheard of in the UK!
Sometimes I do wonder how this country got to be so backwards in certain areas. And then I remember, it is only backwards in the areas where the Government has intervened.
I’ve used public transport abroad quite a bit too – and generally it’s usable, inexpensive, clean, reliable… Cardiff bus is too – but is still fairly expensive…
the other problem with public transport around here is that it’s great for getting into and out of the centre of town, but there are few “circular” routes that take me around the town without going through the center and having to change service.
Of course the government don’t want us to leave our cars at home (or even worse, get rid of them completely) – then they’d have to find another way to raise all those taxes from “Road Fund License”, fuel tax, insurance tax, VAT on the purchase, VAT on dealer services (repairs and servicing), and of course in the near future, pay-as-you-drive road charging… If we all actually started using public transport the government would get far less income from the driving public. It’s not in their interest to make public transport work, despite what they say.
The bus fares in Notts have gone up again to help with rising petrol costs. Now while no doubt this is needed now, why don’t they ever go back down when petrol becomes cheaper?
They’re going up in Cardiff at the end of the month too – it’s just silly now what they expect people to pay to go into town…