Would You Support A New Petrol Protest?

[Superseagull]

Everyone is getting worked up about paying 85p a litre for pertrol but don't think twice about paying £3 for a pint of beer, 75p for a 330ml can of coke, or £2 for a coffee at Starbucks. Even a 1 litre bottle of WATER can cost £1 or more!

Is petrol really that expensive in comparison?

 

[Lammy]

I'm being forced to sell one of my fleet. Although this is due to just buying a house and getting married rather than petrol prices

 

[Pavilionaire]

Public transport is a joke.

Genrally speaking, driving is so much more reliable than getting the train (and a damn sight cheaper for long distances), and if you talk to anyone who gets a bus to work they always complain about poor service.

 

[saltash seagull]

the money the last strike bloody cost me was far more than a little extra on top of my fuel is gonna cost me it's ok anyone in a normal 9 to 5 job to say they would support it but people like me that need a regular supply of fuel to be able to get to work these fuel strikes cost us money

 

[Simster]

ripper,
This campaign has been trying to get off the ground for at least 5 years but it's utterly futile. People will happily whinge about the price of petrol on message boards but if they're running low on petrol, the next garage is a BP/Esso and they don't know when the next station is, I think you'll find these principles go out the window.

 

[zefarelly]

SImster you are wrong . . .

an 80p litre of petrol is made up of 19p for manufacture and manufacturer, 2p for retail outlet, 1p for transportation and 58p for the Gov in tax . . . . .

now assuming the producer makes a profit . . .what ever that is is a tiny fraction of what the government takes.

Th e governemt fleeces motorists left right and centre . . .FACT

and the worse thing of all is we have appaling public transport and shit roads

TONE ET ALL > > > >f***ing SORT IT OUT C**TS

 

[Lammy]

How many literes of oil in 'a barrel' ?

 

[Spiros]

Public transport is a joke.

Genrally speaking, driving is so much more reliable than getting the train (and a damn sight cheaper for long distances), and if you talk to anyone who gets a bus to work they always complain about poor service.

And why did it get that way? Because more and more people decided to exercise their 'right' to use a car. While public transport doesn't work for everyone, there are plenty of people who chose to drive despite the availability of a decent train service alongside their route. Why else are the roads between Worthing and Brighton so clogged in the morning? At rush hour time there are about 5 trains an hour and it's quicker than going by car - and it's very rarely standing room only.

You must live and work in the sticks

 

[ripper]

ripper,
This campaign has been trying to get off the ground for at least 5 years but it's utterly futile. People will happily whinge about the price of petrol on message boards but if they're running low on petrol, the next garage is a BP/Esso and they don't know when the next station is, I think you'll find these principles go out the window.

I am not surprised. For me, I don't need to use my car to commute and rarely drive long distances so am not really affected that much.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

Public transport is a joke.

Genrally speaking, driving is so much more reliable than getting the train (and a damn sight cheaper for long distances), and if you talk to anyone who gets a bus to work they always complain about poor service.

Well I use the buses to get to work in Brighton and I think they're excellent. The only problem I have is that it takes me twice as long than if I could drive.

On the plus side it's far less stressful and I get to read my paper on the way in.

The problem with fuel protests (and speed camera protesters too) is that people forget using a car is a privelege not a right.

 

[zefarelly]

If I could I'd be on the train reading the paper . . . .or better still cyclingor walking to work

 

[swindonseagull]

using a car is NOT a privalage its a Right as long as its legal ie License, insurance and road tax!!!!!!!!!!!! oh another tax on the motorist

 

[Lammy]

SImster you are wrong . . .

an 80p litre of petrol is made up of 19p for manufacture and manufacturer, 2p for retail outlet, 1p for transportation and 58p for the Gov in tax . . . . .

I thought this was bullshit so I worked it out...

A barrell of crude oil costs approx $40
This is approx £23.

A barrell of oil contains approx 120litres.

This works out at 19p a litre of crude oil. Now we don't put crude oil in our cars. This needs to be fractionally distilled to produce high octane fuel (petrol). Just over half of a barrel ends up as petrol. So a litre of petrol will cost say 38p. Now add to that the profits and costs let's say 8p a litre (very low) we now have 46p a litre. Add some more for profit at the pump and transport (which isn't as low as you said a Sainsbury's etc gives discounts of up to 8p a litre!) so we'll say 8p. That gives us 54p a litre.

So 54p a litre is the industry. 36p a litre is tax.

I thank you.

 

[beorhthelm]

Lammy, your figures are a bit wrong there. It doesn't cost $40 to extract a barrel of oil form the ground, thats the price on the commodities market. Dont quote me, but i recall the cost of extracting oil is around $7, although this varies between different oil fields.

Zefarelly's figures are about right, at least in so far as the government takes about 58p in excise and VAT for each litre.

The main problem is one of our culture and society. both the roads and the public transport infrastructures are shite because we commute. Ever seen the train or the A27 between Eastbourne and Brighton? Thousands of people every morning travelling to a town 20 miles away to a do the same job as someone going the other way. Im sure its the same everywhere else. People travel into London from Leeds and Sheffield ffs, but im looking for jobs and there's loads up there.

 

[Gwylan]

The people who complain about the price of petrol should ask themselves what they would prefer to happen if the prices were cut: should income tax be raised or should public services (schools, hospitals, public transport) be cut.

The reason that fuel tax is so high in this country (and duty on booze and fags) is that the Thatcher goverment's policy was to cut income tax and tax consumption, a policy continued by Blair. Governments on mainland Europe have higher rates of income tax but lower fuel and booze duty. Personally speaking, I would prefer higher income tax and lower indirect tax but a party that went into an election promising to raise income tax would be slaughtered at the polls.

But none of the people who have posted on this thread have said what they would prefer to happen? Would they want an extra pound on income tax or would they want hospitals to close. It's blatantly dishonest to complain about the level of fuel tax without saying what should happen to the shortfall in government revenue.

And the main reason for the rise in oil prices is not so much the disruption in the middle east, but the rise in demand from China and the new far East economies and from India. This is a demand that will not go away and I think we can all expect oil prices to continue to rise steadily over the next few years.

What we should be doing is questioning our reliance on the car and wondering whether we should be driving our kids a mile to school or sitting in a queue of cars on the way into a city with three empty seats in the vehicle. Or whether supermarkets should be transporting vegetables from one part of the country to a packaging plant and transporting them back again.

And as far as I'm concerned, as long as people continue to buy gas-guzzling 4x4s, the price isn't high enough. When a few Freelander franchises in Fulham close down, the fuel price would have reached the right level.

 

[Robot Chicken]

What happened after the last petrol protest in 2000? Did prices go down? I can't remember.

 

[Vankleek Hill Seagull]

Here, here. The haulage industry can go f**k themselves if they think they are getting my support.

That's a very dangerous statement to make, you wanker.

Who do you think delivers basic staple goods like bread and milk to the supermarket.? Do these products sprout wings and fly there themselves. I don't think so.

What do you think would happen if the haulage industry suddenly said "F**k It" and stopped delivering goods.? I'll tell you.

1. No petrol to petrol stations.
2. No goods to supermarkets.
3. No deliveries of supplies to hospitals, schools, prisons, etc
4. No manufactured goods being delivered anywhere.

And remember the fact that when the oil companies and the government add more to the price of fuel, the cost of that increase eventually finds it's way to the general public anyway, so it's in everybody's interests to make sure that fuel is as low as possible.