The Price of Petrol

[russnet]

Well as the graphic shows, petrol in Milton Keynes has hit 82.9p. Only one garage owned by Safeway is saving the day by selling it at 79.9p but I guess that will all change.

I see the media is getting in on the act with the news channel saying its on average at 80p per litre. One bizarre report by the BBC though. They seemed to focus it on the stock market and how the price is set by the dollar and if the dollar is low at the moment, it could have been a lot worse should the dollar have changed. Obviously they missed the bit it's the tax the government puts on it that makes it sooo flipping high in the first place.

But hey, don't forget kids, we still got the penny or so the govt will put on towards the end of the year as promised in the budget. Bring on the blockades! I fancy waiting over an hour to get some petrol! lol

Edit: Sorry Mark, you more or less said the dollar/oil thing in your last posting.

[Pete]

whether the tax is high or not the dollar rate should affect the price and it should be falling.

[cwathen]

Just how does the UK government manage to absorb all this money? We pay 80% tax on a litre of petrol and road tax to central government, and local authorities make countless millions from people overpaying at ticket machines which never give change, as well as the revenue of all those £30 parking tickets issued by increasingly ruthless traffic wardens, to say nothing of the cost of resident's parking permits etc - and all of these also result in VAT going to central government.

A quite astonishing amount of revenue through taxation and charges is derived from the motorists of Britain each year, yet we still have some of the worst roads in Europe, with some of the slowest repair times (average time to complete roadworks on dual carriageways are now about 18 months - even though it's usually little more than resurfacing a couple of miles and giving the road a general tidy up).

In America, they pay 1/3rd of what we do for petrol, they pay no road tax, and yet their roads (and they have thousands and thousands of miles more roads than we do) are some of the best in the world.

The fuel situation is typical of the attitude of every government in this country, we pay through the nose for everything, we get taxed into poverty, and yet we get bugger all back for it.

I do hope another fuel crisis happens again. As I said before, as long as the emergency services don't run out of fuel (which will never happen, whatever the scaremongers try to imply) then I can live with the inconvenience for a couple of weeks.

[MrTomServo]

In America, they pay 1/3rd of what we do for petrol, they pay no road tax, and yet their roads (and they have thousands and thousands of miles more roads than we do) are some of the best in the world.

Ooh, I'm afraid I'm going to have to call you on a few things here.

Firstly, we do pay road tax. Most states build it into the cost of gasoline. Most states and the federal government also get money for "transportation" (which is mostly for roads and highways) through income tax. Yes, the cost probably is still lower than what Britons pay.

Secondly, I talked with a relative of mine over there who is a surveyor who actually constructs roads and highways in England, and he pointed out something to me that I never realised. Look at the amount of roads in Britain, and compare it as a percentage to the total land mass in the country. Then do the same for the US. I think you'll find that Britain has far more land dedicated to roads than the US does. They're quite tightly packed in there.

So, marking that, let's pull some numbers out of my backside and talk about population. Let's say Britain's total land mass was, say, 2 percent roads. Does it not make sense that 60 million people (paying for two percent of the land mass) pay more than 300 million people who pay for a half-percent of the land mass? The total "equity share" in your roads is greater because the UK has more roads per capita, and less people to spread the cost around with.

And lastly, if you ever come over here, I'll take you down a few roads that jar your fillings out of your teeth. I'm sure you have both good and bad roads over there, so without using the word "blanket" I think you'll get my point.

[cwathen]

Firstly, we do pay road tax. Most states build it into the cost of gasoline. Most states and the federal government also get money for "transportation" (which is mostly for roads and highways) through income tax. Yes, the cost probably is still lower than what Britons pay.

By 'road tax', I meant our ved (vehicle excise duty) charge. We have to pay a certain sum of money (depending on engine size, and/or emission levels for newer vehicles) to 'tax' a car for 6 months or a year, and we then get a little disk to display in the windscreen. Not displaying a valid tax disk makes it illegal to operate a vehicle on a public road. Please correct me if i'm wrong, but as I understand it no similar system exists in the US? And if your road tax is built into the price of fuel, and your fuel is STILL a third of the cost of ours, then that makes our fuel prices evenmore inflated.

And lastly, if you ever come over here, I'll take you down a few roads that jar your fillings out of your teeth. I'm sure you have both good and bad roads over there, so without using the word "blanket" I think you'll get my point.

i didn't so much mean poor road surfaces, as badly layed out roads/bottlenecks in need of replacement, and the time taken to correct the problem. Granted, just can't build a road in every situation for political, environmental, or spacial reasons. But in many parts of the UK every obstacle to rerouting a road around that bottleneck of a village, or dualling that 5 mile stretch where the capacity needs it, has been cleared out of the way. It's just not being done through 'lack of funds'. a case in point is the dualling of a large stretch of the A38 in Devon which has been on the drawing board for more than 10 years. But when so much is taken through taxation, and they don't appear to be spending it all on improving and maintaining the roads, one must wonder where all the money disappears too?

[MrTomServo]

Firstly, we do pay road tax. Most states build it into the cost of gasoline. Most states and the federal government also get money for "transportation" (which is mostly for roads and highways) through income tax. Yes, the cost probably is still lower than what Britons pay.

By 'road tax', I meant our ved (vehicle excise duty) charge. We have to pay a certain sum of money (depending on engine size, and/or emission levels for newer vehicles) to 'tax' a car for 6 months or a year, and we then get a little disk to display in the windscreen. Not displaying a valid tax disk makes it illegal to operate a vehicle on a public road. Please correct me if i'm wrong, but as I understand it no similar system exists in the US? And if your road tax is built into the price of fuel, and your fuel is STILL a third of the cost of ours, then that makes our fuel prices evenmore inflated.

Ah, yes, that's the VLF --- Vehicle License Fee. One must pay that to the state of their residence and one gets a little sticker for one's license plate. No sticker, and you get pulled over and ticketed. Sometimes one must get a smog check to make sure vehicle emissions are under control. The VLF is about $150 a year, depending on the make, model and size of one's vehicle.

I agree, though, that our cost of fuel --- and indeed, operating vehicles in general --- is much less in the US.

[Anonymous]

Oh no, I feel other motorway blockade coming on.

And if the North Sea's oil is running out the only alternative is

1) Electric Cars
2) Electric/Petrol (Hybirds)
3) Autogas


This is due to the Bloody Iraq war

[MrTomServo]

This is due to the Bloody Iraq war

Have you actually read the last few pages?

[Anonymous]

D'oh!

[Larry Scutta]

Surley the problem is that oil prices are run by a cartel and not (like almost everything else) by simple market forces.

Tax and the like are high in this country, but the original prce of the oil is kept artificially high.

If you think this is high, wait until it starts to run out It won't happen soon, but eventually it will. Oil will be a premium product, and the price will rocket. We should be loosing our reliance on oil, which we more than most countries know about due to the blockades

[cwathen]

If you think this is high, wait until it starts to run out It won't happen soon, but eventually it will. Oil will be a premium product, and the price will rocket. We should be loosing our reliance on oil, which we more than most countries know about due to the blockades

Not knowing anything about chemistry, there's obviously something I'm missing here, but we now have semi and fully synethic engine oils - in other words we can make oil. Rather than being inferior to the real thing, these oils are actually a better and more expensive product, with most modern engines specifying their use rather than using natural mineral oil.

Granted, engine oil is a heavier, less refined product, but could we not develop synthetic petrol (or at least synetic diesel) too?

Or is synethic oil only suitable for use as a lubricant rather than a fuel?

Surley the problem is that oil prices are run by a cartel and not (like almost everything else) by simple market forces.

Tax and the like are high in this country, but the original prce of the oil is kept artificially high.

Indeed they are, but crude oil is sold for the same price around the world, and when the final market product sells in the US for a third of what it does in America - making the UK tax markup even higher than it is for other products, it is clearly the UK government that is largely the reason why our fuel prices are so high.

As to where cars will go when the oil runs out, I think the future is autogas. I just do buy the concept of electric cars for the masses. Aswell as the performance issue, they suffer from limited range, and however far the range increases too, once it's gone the car is dead in the water for a long time whilst the battery is recharged (assuming facilities to recharge it even exists). In contrast, with petrol cars when you run out of fuel you just fill it up again and carry on.

Unless battery technology develops to the point when A) one is developed that enables a car to run for a good few hundred miles on a full charge and B) that it can be fully recharged again inside a couple of minutes, electrically powered cars for general use just aren't practical. And even if this technological breakthrough is accomplished, we'd then need a vast network of 'recharge stations' like the petrol stations now to enable you to recharge on the move. I can't see that happening at any point in my lifetime.

Autogas is the closest to petrol/diesel in that it's still a fuel, you still have a fuel tank and can refill it as conveniently as you can a petrol or diesel car. And Autogas equipped stations are now starting to become more commonplcae. Autogas cars also give decent performance too. But then, being a gas, that's just a stopgap solution - what happens when the gas runs out?