Claudio Fiore Music: April 2008

It's seems a never ending rise in petrol prices is crippling car users around the UK.

Now I don't know about you lot, but this is starting to wind me right up! The other day running on fumes on the M1 motorway, I had to stop and spend what little cash I had left in my pocket in putting some petrol in the car. Now usually I don't bother using motorway petrol stations as they tend to cost more, but for crying out loud, how on earth can it be justified charging £1.15 for a litre of fuel?

Once upon a time (less than 2 years ago) I used to be able to fill my 75 litre tank from empty with approximately £69 of petrol (at around £0.89p per litre). Now its costing me in excess of £80. Now I know you're probably saying to yourselves "well use public transport" well I would but I travel quite a bit for work, and train prices from London to Coventry are not the cheapest, infact even with fuel prices so high it is still cheaper to drive, apart from the fact that you are lucky to get a seat unless you pay the hiked prices for first class, which I am not happy doing personally. I like the comfort of my own car and space, and hate being crammed up with a load of other sardines (some of which tend to not have a wash in the morning... Personal hygene is just another one of my narks! But thats a different story for a different day!).

Anyway, whats going on, and why are we paying so much for fuel? Is this an attempt by the government to drive (excuse the pun) people off of the roads and into public transport?

We pay our road tax, car insurance, wear and tear of our our vehicles (and tax on top of all of that too), now we pay for driving in London (which doesn't bother me so much as I tend not to drive around London at peak times anyway), we pay for tolls, in fact "we pay" for everything to do with driving our cars, and then some more on top of that. Why then do we have to pay extra duty on fuel. It's getting out of hand in about 3 months fuel prices have increased in excess of 10pence per litre in some places. And yet I dont see much complaining going on!

Is there anything that can be done about this. One thing I do notice is that with increasing cost of fuel, expenses relating to driving for work related journeys have NOT increased to compensate (even slightly) for the hike in fuel prices.

What can be done?

Well it doesn't seem that much can be done. Now I'm all for a greener UK, and I do what I can to conserve energy, I dont drive a particularly huge car, certainly do not agree with 4x4's and gas guzzlers, but hey, unless you have a high powered job and, in excess of £1.07p per litre doesn't bother you, then it seems that us lower paid people are stuffed!

Some links regarding the above follow:-