More fuel protests this week!?

Fill up now before the rush :ph34r:

Helps make the whole thing more effective init. :irolleyes

Wish I had a deisel, at least then I could run on veg oil.

I notice they are considering rationing petrol during any blockades.

That's actually a better way of controling fuel use then taxes. Why should the rich be allowed to fuck the environment.

PHLUR :sun:
 
Looking on some of the protest sites is good fun.

You get people saying 99% of the UK population are supporting the protests and the 1% are living in cloud cuckoo land. That's only a slight paraphrase on something I read.

One of them has a forum which seems to have been infiltrated by people with more of a 'green' point of view.

Oh - and Greenpeace has called the protestors self-centred.
 
I better fill up now then

:Smile3:

Its 98.7 is the highest i have payed in the last few weeks.

Considering the cheapest i could get about a month or two ago was 78.9.....

I agree that it shouldnt be so expensive, but then again i would pay even more if i thought some of the money was going towards developing fossil fuel alternatives.

I think what is unfair is that it is so much cheaper in America and other countries, and the thought eventually the petrol will only be available to those that can afford it. Public Transport is already a rip off, no offense, the number 69 bus from Winchester through bishops waltham (then to southsea) is £5 return to bishops waltham, i could get from winchester to bishops waltham, back to winchester and back to bishops waltham again (just) on £5, and thats taking into consideration there is more than 1 person on a bus. Often more than 20. Why so costly? I thought it was supposed to be a cheaper way of travelling
 
Gasoline in America is still cheap compared to ours (about half the price I think). They're going nuts over there because they consider it too expensive.

I think part of the problem is that events have conspired to give us a hike in price over a short period of time. If it had gone up gradually, people might not be so annoyed.

At least we have public transport over here. You ought to try finding *any* in some parts of the USA.

I'd also like to see the government using more of the revenue to go towards public transport, subsidising fares perhaps? I do get the feeling that too much of it is going towards activities I'm not ever-so happy about (war in Iraq for example).

However - we do still need to find ways of getting people out of their cars. Me included! I'm certainly not whiter than white on this issue. How do you do it though under normal circumstances? Higher prices via tax is an obvious one, but it's not a perfect solution.

Is *money* the only incentive people have...?
 
Purusha said:
Oh - and Greenpeace has called the protestors self-centred.
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I sort of agree with that. Whilst Im not impressed at fuel prices going up and think someone has to do something to show the government were not happy, I think go-slow protests on the motorways are selfish. Not only are they involving innocent motorists, they are wasting fuel by making people run their cars for longer. It doesnt seem to have occured to them that theyre not the only ones affected by it.

Theres gonna be lots of angry people this weekend too, as its the weekend most unis start Freshers week so theres gonna be lots of students stuck on motorways trying to move in :no:
 
Purusha said:
I'd also like to see the government using more of the revenue to go towards public transport, subsidising fares perhaps? I do get the feeling that too much of it is going towards activities I'm not ever-so happy about (war in Iraq for example).

However - we do still need to find ways of getting people out of their cars. Me included! I'm certainly not whiter than white on this issue. How do you do it though under normal circumstances? Higher prices via tax is an obvious one, but it's not a perfect solution.

Is *money* the only incentive people have...?
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I think there should be much greater investment and subsidy of public transport in this country. The extra taxes the government is pulling in due to the fuel price rises should be spent on making this country use less fossil fuels per capita (public transport investment and subsidy basically) and on research into new fuels.

In my last job I was spending well over £110 per month just to get to work and back via public transport... the truly annoying thing about it was that I worked out it would actually be cheaper for me to buy/insure/fuel and use a car on the same journey, let alone that it would have got me there in half the time.

Unfortunately our government has been cutting subsidies and forcing prices up all across the board on public transport as well as being involved in the blatant forced closure of many routes. Public transport prices have been consistently rising at well above inflation rates and I can see and understand why people take to the one person/one car option so readily.

:Sad:
 
In my day, most of us went to Uni/college with all our possessions in a backpack on coach or train!

Cars were a rarity amongst Students. I had a car for the first 4 months or so, but couldn't afford to keep running it.

"Someone has to show the goverment we're not happy"!? Who are people going to blame when they can't get petrol? The government or the blockaders? That's if it turns into a blockade, and I'm not sure it will.

If you check the BBC news website, there's links to break-downs on how much tax we pay compared to the rest of Europe. If you believe it, you might be surprised to know that we're about on a par with most *Western* European countries. *If* it's correct, there seems to be mis-information floating around on how much we pay compared to our neighbours. But then, I'm no expert and there might be more to the story...
 
Well...according to the Telegraph (and no, I dont give a shit about right/left wing newspapers OK) protesters are looking to blockade Dover again and do these go-slow protests, which essentially dont let anyone off the motorway so theyre blockading them too.

And by students I meant in their parents car...I doubt every student has their own car.

People will blame anyone who seems to be unpopular at that time. By that statement I meant that the blockaders are doing something about it but not in the best manner....yet I dont really see anyone else standing up and fighting against it. At the end of the day, its not the blockaders who put the prices up and their demonstrations will not last as long as the governments increase in fuel prices (I hope anyway!)

And like most eco-friendly people, Id love to use public transport but for the reasons Grokit mentioned, and others theres a long way to go before I even feel safe, let alone feel its a justified price and actually takes me where I need to go. Unfortunately, living where I do its more often than not impossible to go anywhere without driving. When I move to Bristol, Ill have my car with me but use PT as much as possible.
 
grokit23 said:
The extra taxes the government is pulling in due to the fuel price rises
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There isn't any extra though, tax is a flat rate on top of the manufacturers price. If anything they will be getting less tax as economical petrol use is on peoples mind and they may be inclined to drive less.


In my last job I was spending well over £110 per month just to get to work and back via public transport... the truly annoying thing about it was that I worked out it would actually be cheaper for me to buy/insure/fuel and use a car on the same journey, let alone that it would have got me there in half the time.
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Tell me about it, I had to get the train back from work once. I normally drive it takes me 30 minutes if the road is clear and up to an hour during term-time in the winter. Petrol currently costs me about £25 a week. On the train it cost more than £20 one way, and took in excess of 3 hours. Fuck that.
 
PAF they're not protesting that the government has put up fuel prices, it's about fuel duties which were set when the fuel prices were anticipated to stay relatively stable and much lower. Now the basic fuel prices have risen dramatically, the fuel taxes are still set at the same % rates, which means that the government is getting far more revenue from the same amount of fuel and the end user sees a massive increase in costs.
 
The government hasn't actually put prices up. The cost of fuel has gone up (demand and supply). I think I'm right in saying (correct me if I'm wrong here) that we pay a *percentage* in tax relative to the price at the pump. So - as Gordon Brown argued at the weekend, the government hasn't actually put taxes up technically speaking. Taxes have been *frozen*.

That's the normal way taxes work, as a percentage.

So - the government is effectively taking more income, presuming that people aren't reducing their consumption in proportion to the higher prices.

If they were to say X amount per litre, regardless of price, that might be a different story.
 
Monkey Do said:
There isn't any extra though, tax is a flat rate on top of the manufacturers price. If anything they will be getting less tax as economical petrol use is on peoples mind and they may be inclined to drive less.
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I beg to differ, fuel duty is set as a percentage of the price per barrel. The prices per barrel have risen and the taxes collected have thus increased dramatically. The higher fuel prices are looking likely to bring in an extra billion to the treasury... let me just go off and check those figures somewhere, I know I was reading a BBC article on it last night...
 
We pay a per litre duty, currently about 48p per litre on petrol & diesel, 28p on biodiesel and 13p per kg on LPG.

What does change as a percentage of price is VAT.

http://www.politics.co.uk/issues/road-fuel-duties-$3320486.htm
 
grokit23 said:
PAF they're not protesting that the government has put up fuel prices, it's about fuel duties which were set when the fuel prices were anticipated to stay relatively stable and much lower. Now the basic fuel prices have risen dramatically, the fuel taxes are still set at the same % rates, which means that the government is getting far more revenue from the same amount of fuel and the end user sees a massive increase in costs.
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OK...I get it (please bear in mind I dont really understand politics or anything) :Smile3:
 
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