Boycott the pumps

[yorkie]

There is growing concern amongst motorists within the UK about the price of petrol and more importantly the rapidly approaching £1 per litre for fuel. Boycott The Pumps is a campaign to show the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, that motorists are sick of being used as a piggy bank by the government.

Did you know for example that a litre of fuel before tax costs only 14p? The UK has some of the cheapest petrol in Europe until the 614% tax is added. Petrol has increased in price by 44% in the last 3 years.

Some of the justification for the increases in fuel tax are for an improved public transport infrastructure however improvements have yet to materialise.

The British public pay more tax (£36 billion per year) than any other European country to drive on poorly maintained roads. Some roads should have been overhauled 15 years ago but investment in roads and public transport is minimal (£6 billion).

I call upon all British drivers to support the campaign which starts on the 1st August. The British driver has been exploited for far to long. It is time to let the government know that we have had enough. Visit the campaign web site at http://www.boycott-the-pumps.com and show your support.

[TimD]

For what it's worth, I'll probably go along with this. It does seem a bit like shooting the messenger, as the people who will see their cashflow affected will be the fuel stations, but maybe the point will be made.

Incidentally, it might be of interest to our American correspondents that the current British pump price of gas works out at more than $7 per gallon.

Someone on the news last night worked out that some families on lower incomes in rural areas now pay more in tax on their fuel bills than they do in income tax.

[Regs]

People are ready to riot here over the price of low grade unleaded regular approaching $2.00 a gallon. I couldn't even imagine seven! I'm seeing my gas prices rise at a rate of about a cent a day, and we're at a $1.80 a gallon now. We also only pay a standard Fed and State sales tax built into the price. Roughly 8% if I'm correct(KC?). But the way you folks are taxed on gas is crazy. Isn't there anything you can do? Call your local MP and tell em to remember he's voted into office and you'll remember him come election season. Then again I'm not familiar with the workings of the British Government when it come to how it relates to its citizens. I'll take a quick lesson on it from anyone here willing to teach it though. Doesn't the British Government issue bonds for road projects and other municipal works? What is you personal income tax like? But over 600% in taxes for gas...thats a bit much!

[enzo]

And people wonder why things like National Health Care haven't been passed in the States - the money has to come from somewhere & the only available pocket is the taxpayer.

[KC]

I haven't complained too loudly about our fuel prices here because I know we have it very cheap compared to Europe. Gasoline in Tulsa has fallen from $1.80 a gallon to 1.59 a gallon just this week. We pay a 8.5% federal tax on fuel in America. The states are also allowed to place an excise tax on fuel as well. The state of Oklahoma takes .22 cents per gallon, other states like Texas take .27 cents per gallon ostensibly for road repairs. I will say that when it all works out, we pay about the same percentage in fuel due to our penchant for very inefficient cars and trucks. My truck has a range of about 320 miles on 20 gallons of fuel. Not very good compared to a typical 1.5 liter European auto.

In the time I spent in England I must say this. You have roads that are much better than the majority of ours. Even in the back country roads around Leceister, Thurcaston, Nottingham and some of the smaller villages were pool table smooth compared to streets I drive everyday. Texas has better roads than Oklahoma as well. It makes me mad everytime I have stop and pay a toll fee to drive on a major highway in Oklahoma after you were nearly beaten sensless by the poor workmanship. There are sections of the Oklahoma Turnpike system that make you feel like you are riding a galloping horse to drive on them. Some of this has to do with opur higher temperature extremes than England, but most has to do with the governing bodies using the absolute lowest grade materials.

[fatbloke]

You've never driven in London, or tried to get anywhere fats on one of our motorways, have you KC ?

Boycott the pumps ? Nice idea - it'll never work. Even if people didn't fill up on that one day, they'll simply fill up the night before instead... making the whole idea pointless. If private motorsists want to make their point, go park your car on the M25 for the day. Mind you, when the RHA tried that, there was absolutely no public support for them and their members. Should have listened guys.

Much better for the oil companies to get together and refuse to deliver /any/ more fuel to the forecourts until the goverment slash their ridiculous tax levels. The country would grind to a halt within a week, and Lionel Blair would have no choice but to cave in. The petrol companies would love it as they would be seen as being on the motorists side for once.

[marcus]

ok $7 US dollars a gallon..what does that equal in Ozzie dollars per litre ???

anyway here the prices vary depending on where you are living...im sure crash pays less for petrol than i do being in the big smoke..im paying 90-92 cents per litre for unleaded..super or leaded fuel is another 5 or 6 cents higher ..but that is because im out in the sticks ..strange thing though..a little town called Culcairn is about 40 mins drive from my town..they get fuel from Melbourne and they pay 5-6c less than i do and its the same fuel and their fuel is delivered by the same company and stops at our town first and then continues north to culcairn..our proprieters say its because of transport costs ..but yet culcairns fuel has further to travel but costs less ????

even gas (LPG) is on the rise here its all getting to much but what the heck can we do about it ???

[yorkie]

Fatbloke, that's the whole idea. Go to the petrol station on the Monday. Everyone go to the petrol station on the Monday. The idea is to confuse the normall delivery schedules, this will in turn make the oil companies sit up and take notice who will then demand that the government take action (in theory at least).

[Peter Mallett]

I'm not in the UK on that date so its no problem for me.

[TimD]

Originally posted by marcus
ok $7 US dollars a gallon..what does that equal in Ozzie dollars per litre ???

At todays rates, about AU$2.40, I think.

And people wonder why V-8 motors never caught on in the UK....

[fatbloke]

Originally posted by yorkie
Fatbloke, that's the whole idea. Go to the petrol station on the Monday. Everyone go to the petrol station on the Monday. The idea is to confuse the normall delivery schedules, this will in turn make the oil companies sit up and take notice who will then demand that the government take action (in theory at least).

hmmm... that'll make a huge difference then... NOT. The fuel companies will just have to ensure that their tanks are full the night before and then carry on as usual.

Why not organise a boycott of individual companies on different days ? This would ensure that the companies actually lose money and would be more likely to back action against the goverment.

[KC]

Fatbloke, I wasn't commenting on how busy your roads were versus ours, just how nice they were to drive on. England does not have the wide open spaces like America has. Your countryside is more or less settled. When I get on the Indian Nations Turnpike to go to Texas from Tulsa, there are only two exits for the next 125 miles. Nothing else is out there except a few farmers with big thousand acre farms. Thus, there is no reason to slow down except to pay the tolls. No place to refuel or stop and use the toilet either. And this is Oklahoma, a relatively small state. When you go to Wyoming, west Texas, and Arizona you have to plan ahead where to get fuel and food. There are places where its not kidding when the sign says "No Food or Gas for 300 miles". Thus we can typically maintain higher average speeds on our highways than in England where you tend to have more traffic because there are so many places along the way.

BTW, London gets crowded because of its age and many small and narrow streets, but I have driven in Houston, Chicago, and Los Angeles where they have 8 lanes of traffic going each way and it still doesn't move because of the gridlock. It's bad in almost major city worldwide.

[fatbloke]

Nor was I - I was talking about the horrendous state of the roads in the UK - potholes, poorly repaired roadworks, etc. Considering the amount of tax which we pay - road fund licence and fuel duty - you have to wonder why ?

[KC]

I guess we just didn't see that part of it. One of the things I noticed right away was how much smoother they seemed than back home.

I have lived in Tulsa for 7 years now and they are still working on the same construction improvement projects to the main highways throught he city they were when I moved here. They have had to go back and repave areas that are new and are worn out before they can finish other parts of it. I am beginning to believe that the Indian word Tulsa, means 'working on the road for no apparent reason'.

The US suffers from the same problems, taxes go up, services go down. There are some really wealthy politicians around the world that have a lot more now than when they first took office.

This whole oil shortage issue is mostly a sham anyway. Our fuel prices were climbing about .05 cents a day just about three weeks ago. It went up from $1.42 a gallon to $1.71 a gallon in less than two weeks. Suddenly the Federal Trade Commision in the US announces they are going to investigate the matter and fuel prices begin to drop and are now down to $1.52 a gallon. Its all a big money grab by the oil and gas suppliers and their politcial lap dogs.

[Bluebottle]

Todays cissue of The Sun devoted it's entire front page to a cut-out-and-post-to-Gordon-Brown coupon for readers to register their anger at the tax levels- so if the price comes down we can look forward to 'IT WOZ THE SUN WOT WUN IT...!'
The excuse often used is an environmental one- the British Government has a policy of fleecing the motorist to make us think more about how we use our cars... I'm convinced it has nothing to do with motorists being an easy target for increasing the amount of money coming into government coffers!! (Nurse says its time for my medication.....)

[TimD]

Don't forget, KC, that a lot of this is down to OPEC. The cartel of oil-producing nations decides the level of production, and then the price is largely dictated by supply and demand on the open commodities market.

As it stands, the price they are getting for their oil is at an all time high. They know they can't push for much more, because the evidence of the fuel crisis of 1973-74 demonstrates that there's only so much that the industrial economies can take.

So the easy way of lowering prices is to raise oil production, so that supply better meets demand. Simple.

But.

Some OPEC countries, Norway in particular, also, I believe, Yemen and Jordan (correct me if I'm wrong on those two) are already at maximum oil production capacity. They are getting the best price they can hope for per barrel of oil, and if oil production is increased, they do not have the capacity to step up their own operations, and will see the price they get falling with no compensation of greater turnover.

They're happy with the status quo. So they are putting their foot down. And in reality, there isn't a whole lot that the American and European govrnments can do about it.

[Regs]

Can someone give me a good reason why we absolutely must design our engines to run on gasoline? If I'm not mistaken, some race cars run on alcohol and other types of fuels. I've already heard the bit on how alcohol flames are invisible and so fourth and I don't buy that BS. I see no sound reason other than economics as to why alcohol burning engines can not be designed and mass produced. If I'm not mistaken, alcohol burns cleaner, so its better for the environment. Most countries can grow it. Thus we no longer need to depend on OPEC, and thier particular needs. I just know there are better alternatives out there and it's time we took a look at em.

[Bluebottle]

Surely they wouldn't stop us using methanol on safety grounds, especially since we are now forced to use lead free, which I'm lead (!) to believe is more difficult to put out in a fire!
I'm sure the alternatives exist, but the oil companies will keep them supressed untill the oil runs out and then... guess who'll be selling the alternative fuels......
(Nurse, the medication isn't working...)

[fatbloke]

Our local Sainsburys is now selling LPG I noticed the other day - at 39p per litre. Looks like it could be a viable option if a few of the large companies were to sign up to distribute it nationwide. Last year Vauxhall ran an LPG powered car in the Vectra Challenge - it won on at least one occasion, so they're certainly a possibility. However, as happened with Diesel, the taxes would rise on it as soon as it became popular...

[TimD]

One of the principal objections to alcohol/methanol based fuels is the sheer scale of the operation required to harvest it.

If you think about it, if you are going to run a city's worth of cars on alcohol fuel, that's a lot of prime agricultural land you're going to have to set aside for sugar beet.

Yes, there are synthetic alcohols, but the job of processing them makes them not much of an advantage on cost or environmental grounds.

As an aside, some British city bus companies have been experimenting with running their vehicles on vegetable based oil. Reading, I am pretty sure, is one of them. I am told you can spot a vegetable powered bus by the gentle aroma of frying chips wafting from the tailpipe!

Michael M is the expert on fuel science. Are you listening in on this one, Michael?

[Jay]

bah, take the bus/train!

(I know it is not ALL that simple, but in many cases it IS.)

[Green_man4421]

First thing is is that their are many other ways of running cars, Hydro, Solar and Electric. These methods of fuel are not in the free market beacuse the goverment makes so much money from Fuel. They basically steal it from the middle east the oil companies then sell it cheap and the goverment taxes it up to make money. If the goverment really cared about pollution we wouldn't be buring petrol.

But the relliance on fuel that the public has is something that the goverment can use to make a profit.

(Question for people in Aussie with GST will we only have a 10% tax on fuel? Or will we have 10% ontop but can't they not do that because their will be no other taxes?)

But yeah just try not to use your car so much. Considering what fuel does it is very cheap, and I don't know but if you really on it you should know that the countries that have it could charge those who don't alot more than they do.

[Regs]

I have noticed over the past couple of years that the local buses have been using natual gas, as have vehicles from the Water Authority, Railroad service vehicles and municipal maintanance vehcles. But the latest idea seems to be these hybrid technology engines that employ a gas motor to start an electric motor which the car then uses to draw its power from. This is probably the future. In fact there are a couple of models available now from Honda and Toyota with more on the way from Ford and GM.

[Sparky]

LPG sounds cheap at 39p per litre, but the consumption rate is significantly higher than petrol.

Tony Blair said, in a TV interview last weekend, that Petrol prices in the UK could be slashed, but at the expense of schools/hospitals/community projects etc. Time was, they told us that all fuel tax was used for road/traffic maintenance.

The labour party has long campaigned for traffic reduction and alternative transport policies, but their schemes never work. As long as an individual has to give up the freedom to sit alone in traffic and pick his nose in peace, public transport as a viable alternative will fail.

Does anyone remember the "Cheapest Gasoline prices in the world... it ain't England" thread I started last year? Difficult to believe the prices have gne up almost 20% since then!!!

I'm not sure anyone has the answer, but alternative fuels would seem to offer an emmisions reduction, but would not address the congestion/road wear situation.

I would dearly like to know what percentage of that 600% tax goes on road upkeep/new road system construction, etc.

Anybody have any idea?

[yorkie]

Sparky

£36 billion is taken by the government by direct taxation to the motorist, of that around £6 billion is spent on roads and transport.

The idea that reducing tax on fuel will make heath and education suffer is absolute ******! It is scare mongering at its lowest level (what about the children? What about the sick?). When you consider that without including petrol tax and the road fund licence you are now taxed more than you were 3 years ago (are you married? Do you own a house? Do you have a private or company pension scheme?). There are more people working now so therefore the amount collected in income tax should have risen, while at the same time social security burden should have been reduced.

If you don't think that the UK motorist is being robbed then answer this. At the last budget the Chancellor (Chancer?) raised both petrol and pensions by the rate of inflation. Why then did petrol raise by 3.3% while pensioners were given a 1.1% rise?

The government pledged before election that there would be no increase in tax however petrol has increased by 44% in three years, 32% of which is tax increases.

I am sorry that this missive may sound like an anti-Labour statement as this campaign is not politically motivated against any one party (the Torys started the fuel escalator) but when you see the lies and propaganda being put forth by Tony Blair it will degenerate in to one.