quote:

Originally posted by Adam Meredith:

quote:

Originally posted by Gianluigi Mazzorana:
I got my watch at the gas station with tokens.

"look I can afford expensive petrol"

If unlike Gianluigi you can't afford expensive petrol, or indeed you just think that the price of petrol and utilities in the UK are ridiculous and think the government should be doing something other than cashing in on it then you might want to take a look at/sign this.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Lowerduty30/

Cue all the environmentalists telling me I'm complicit in us all going to hell on a turbo-charged hand cart!

Put aside global concerns if you want, our roads (and lungs) are clogged right now. We've grown up to consider road travel as a right, as essential to daily life, and we've generally seen the cost of motoring drift down and down.

Driving is a luxury. It is about time societies and individuals came up with practical solutions (and acted on them) to cut down motoring volumes; from different working practices, to the design of communities let alone encouraging people to not be so darn lazy!

Costs rising are the only thing that will make people change, twas ever thus. Look at the link between rising cigarette prices and population smoking incidence. We are facing rising oil prices in the medium term, some short term fiddling by government may ease the pain for a short while but will not buck that trend.

By the way, how would you prefer the Exchequer to raise the lost tax?

Bruce

How predictable...

I take it from your location you know North Yorkshire quite well? Try telling someone from Kirby Underdale, or Thornton (I could go on) that driving is a luxury. Or would you propose that they stay at home, live on benefits and grow organic veg in their back garden?

Why should the Exchequer raise the lost tax? Revenue from motorists, and overall revenue has gone up massively under this government, if they had a little less money maybe they'd be more responsible with it!

Also they wouldn't necessarily lose revenue, a duty reduction that would see them take the same amount of revenue as they would have done before the recent price rises would still amount to a reduction of around 5p at the pumps.

quote:

By the way, how would you prefer the Exchequer to raise the lost tax?

quote:

Why should the Exchequer raise the lost tax? Revenue from motorists, and overall revenue has gone up massively under this government, if they had a little less money maybe they'd be more responsible with it!

Yes indeed. The public sector has bloated out of all recognition and still they don't want to empty a bin.....amazing what scams can be dreamt up in the name of "environment".

Bruce, maybe the abolition of final salary civil service pensions might be a good place to start reducing the tax take. Along with some thinning out of the bucketfuls of regulation and legislation that has been created.

Steve

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Bruce Woodhouse

Driving is a luxury.

A luxury?
Hmm,not sure about that one. Maybe it should be a luxury, but its a necessity for the vast majority, even if it is an evil one.
I live in a small village. The nearest town/cash point/shop/doctors is only about 4 miles away, yet there is no public transport of any kind to & from.
Car journies for many people, especially in big cities could (should?) no doubt be really cut back, IF public transport was better. The reality is that the vast majority of public transport in England is over-priced unsavoury & unsuitable. This is what needs changing, but I fear it would have to be revoloutionary, not evolutionary.
Mobility could be changed using the stick or the carrott, but the stick seems to be all we get.
Matt.

Quite right.

Various governments spend years running down public transport, closing railway lines and encouraging road use and then wishes to pretend none of that happened? I think not.

The country has been planned, built and ordered around it's road systems. To change that takes far more imagination and huge commitment rather than just trying to price users off it. That's just blatant tax raising opportunism.

The govt must be dead chuffed that the environmental issues have gained such a high profile bandwagon. Never before have you seen such a trump card produced to anyone who dares complain about obscenely high taxation. People up in arms about the extortionate fuel, waste and energy taxes are brushed aside in an instant with the "need" for green taxes.

Priceless.

I bet Healey and Callaghan would have loved such an excuse.

Steve

I live in a rural area, I know the effect of rising fuel prices on my community. I also know that rising prices are already causing people to change in positive ways. Car sharing for example or the Post Bus service that serves my hamlet that was about to close-and now is not. Broadband rollout to rural commuities has been good, uptake is higher here than the cities, larger numbers now using it to work from home.

I am not advocating a 'stick-only' approach but I'd argue that in your criticisms of public transport you are actually proving my point. Now that motoring is more expensive you are actually interested in the quality of public transport, and perhaps you might encourage your local and national politicians to do something about it.

We can all suggest places that public money can be saved. Such arguments are a classic diversion from the main issue. Oil is expensive, we live in a marekt economy utterly dependent on it. We have passed peak oil, we are saturated with vehicles and live in a country that is overcrowded. Motoring liberates but also enslaves us; in a fug of pollution and with towns and cities where design focuses on the car rather than the resident. We think nothing of getting our web shopping delivered by overnight courier from the other end of the country or travelling fifty miles to buy a tee shirt.

Time to change-and rising prices are a force for change.

I knew I'd upset a few people!

bruce

quote:

By the way, how would you prefer the Exchequer to raise the lost tax?

Actually I'd rather they didn't need so much in the first place. Perhaps not embarking upon illegal and immoral wars would be a good starting place. Perhaps not paying billions to US consultancy firms who then advocate new technical projects which are best delivered by.....US consultancy firms. eBorders anyone?

quote:

Originally posted by Chris Kelly:

quote:

By the way, how would you prefer the Exchequer to raise the lost tax?

Actually I'd rather they didn't need so much in the first place. Perhaps not embarking upon illegal and immoral wars would be a good starting place. Perhaps not paying billions to US consultancy firms who then advocate new technical projects which are best delivered by.....US consultancy firms. eBorders anyone?

...or NHS connecting for health!

Bruce
I didn't want to tread on your turf! But yes, NPfIT qualifies for sure!

quote:

NHS connecting for health

What a hugely sucessful project that was. It only took my GP back here three weeks to get my medical notes from the Old Aberdeen Medical Practice. I suspect that without billions of pounds worth of computers it would have taken years!

quote:

Originally posted by djftw:

quote:

NHS connecting for health

What a hugely sucessful project that was. It only took my GP back here three weeks to get my medical notes from the Old Aberdeen Medical Practice. I suspect that without billions of pounds worth of computers it would have taken years!

Yeah, and copies have also accidentally been sent to your local bank manager and some bloke in Bulgaria who asked nicely...

Bruce,
I'm not uspet with your post & I do partly agree with you.
Caring about public transport is not new to me. Although I rarely use it, others around me have to.
A train from Stansted airport to Liverpool street London is an example.
You used to be able to get cheap day returns, if you avoided rush hour. Now, the've scrapped that, effectively putting the price up by £15 per head. The reason, apparently, is that the rail co. primary target is the business commuter, who flies into Stansted & goes into London for a days business. Providing public transport into the city for local(ish) residents is not a priority. So now, we'd have to drive to another train or tube station, park up & complete the remains of the journey by rail. By which time there may or may not be seats available. So for a family, you might as well drive all the way in, pay the extra tax, use more fuel, pollute blah blah blah.
If thats not profiteering, its at the least an example of non "joined up thinking".
The theory of global warming has been a golden egg for govts & companies to make a fortune, whilst all the time preach sanctimony
Matt.

quote:

Post Bus service that serves my hamlet

Well lucky you! Thornton is lucky enough to get a school bus and weekly shopper service. Kirby Underdale you couldn't get a bus to, so you have to drive your kids to a village 5 miles away in order for them to get to school, and that won't happen in winter unless you have a Landrover! Not driving just isn't an option for some people, and profoundly inconvenient for many more.

The carbon figures for buses also suggest to me that they would not be doing the environment any favours opperating services in rural areas. My car puts out 138g/km, a new passenger bus puts out 1512g/km (goodness only knows what some of the old ones that are still on the road do), so if I have a full car (5 people) my emissions per person will be 27.6g/km, the bus would need to have 55 people on it to beat that!

So keep up the car sharing, lose the bus!

quote:

Originally posted by Bruce Woodhouse:
Yeah, and copies have also accidentally been sent to your local bank manager and some bloke in Bulgaria who asked nicely...

I wondered why my life insurance went up!

Bruce

As a GP I dare say you can well afford these green principles...

quote:

I suspect that without billions of pounds worth of computers it would have taken years!

Or an overnight registered letter?

Blah blah blah blah blah.

Some of us have NO CHOICE but to be reliant on public transport. Being able to see is a luxury from my perspective; being able to drive - well, you lot are so lucky. Whine whine whine is all you ever do.

If you can't live without your car because of, perhaps, bad choice of job location or residence location, maybe you should try walking in my shoes and having to make compromises on where I work and live.

Think yourselves lucky you CAN drive.

Public transport sucks, but most people on here seem to be able to afford to run cars (whether they like the costs or not) so put up and shut up, or move house/job and walk/ride a bike.

No sympathy here I'm afraid.

Hi Bruce I work in catering. Its not realistic for me to work from home.

I need to earn money for my family. Sadly this invariably involves travelling.

1 bus goes to my work from Salisbury. Unfortunately I live in Andover. I have random start and finish times.

I need a car. I am not lazy.

I feel confident you earn at least 3 times what I earn. People like you always talk about people like me. I also bet that your 'carbon foot print' is a lot larger than mine.

I never had a car in Aberdeen and rarely had the need for one, I think I rented on three occasions, I could walk across the city proper in half an hour. People who live and work in a major city have no excuse really, but here if I don't either use a car or get a lift in one for a day it usually means I have done nothing other than walk or cycle to see my friends in surrounding villages. When the weather is like this I don't mind a good bike ride, however at other times, or when time or distance is a factor driving is my only option.