The AA Complaining Again

[Red Light]

Would you move house for a job that pays around £7.50 per hour less tax and NI (that is for class 1 - artic, less for class 2) ? Less a compulsory 1 hour unpaid break? In an industry which is on it's knees with no signs of improvement? No; neither would I.

Sounds like you are working several hours a day just to pay for the fuel and other car costs of getting to work. You could accept a lower income and still be quids in if it were nearer to home.

 

[Brandane]

Time for me to bail out of this thread now. The tunnel-visioned cycle fascist rottweilers have taken it over and there's no point in trying to reason with some of you. One in particular felt the need to make it personal. Meanwhile the silent majority are probably looking in for the entertainment value, and must be shaking their heads at some of the attitudes on here. Oh and it's far too nice out there not to be in the . Good day y'all!!

 

[subaqua]

If/when petrol hits £2.50 a litre, assuming wage inflation remains flat, so real incomes will be declining in real terms, will folk still have no choice but to use their cars, solo, to get to work?

If £2.50 won't do it, at what point does the habit get too expensive?

it doesn't, sadly.

its like ciggies . I said when it got to £3 for 20 I would stop, then it was £4 then £5 then £6. its only coming to my senses to the damage it was doing that made me stop that habit.
i am slowly coming to my senses about using a car . unneccesary journeys have gone.

 

[marinyork]

If/when petrol hits £2.50 a litre, assuming wage inflation remains flat, so real incomes will be declining in real terms, will folk still have no choice but to use their cars, solo, to get to work?

If £2.50 won't do it, at what point does the habit get too expensive?

It was hypothesised in the early-mid 90s that it would be about the £2.50 per litre that behaviour would start to change. One of the problems with this is that since then the fuel escalator has been junked and people are superficially much more aware of how much fuel costs. In today's money depending on which measure of inflation you go on or prices/wage or some other measurement (because the cost of motoring overall has fallen compared to other key things like public transport) would be somewhere around the £4-6 a litre mark.

 

[benb]

Of course there's no getting around the fact that motoring is still disproportionately cheap.

Yes, fuel has got a lot more expensive in recent years, but engines are more economical, and the real cost of actually buying a car has decreased by a substantial amount. Total running costs are lower than in 1988.
http://www.rac.co.uk/report-on-motoring/report-one/cost-of-motoring/

 

[Silver Fox]

On top of all this, a tanker drivers strike is now looming on the horizon ...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17512729

Panic buying and queues round the block at petrol stations, here we go again.

 

[Piemaster]

Way back on page 1 of this thread, Brandane wrote “It is a fact of life that the car has become pretty much a necessity for most people.” True.

BUT - the elephant in the room. That dependence on the car as a necessity is going to change. No choice, no argument, no politics. Plain fact of life.

The geopolitical, geophysical, and environmental realities are harsh – we will never, ever again produce as much oil as we did a few years ago. It's gone. Burned up. Or made into plastic Xmas decorations and supermarket carrier bags. And it ain't going to be there to make the electricity and plastics for electric cars either. Only replaceable by a quarter million years of excessive global warming, the likes of which created the oil supplies in the first place.

The readjustment for people who depend on cars – well, I suspect you ain't seen nothing yet; it hasn't even started.

And we're bickering about biking and cyclists? Duuuuuh! Even if the bike had never been invented, or been abolished, or become extinct 100 years ago .......... car-dependents would be facing exactly the same pressures and readjustments as they are now.

The only way cycling fits in is that some of us are able to be early re-adopters of a technology which to some extent bypasses the problems of dependence on private car ownership.

Despite all the bickering on the thread over the way rising fuel will effect individuals, there are some that can see that things will change.

I feel fortunate in some ways that some of my time behind the wheel has coincided with the best years for motoring in this country (I passed my test mid 80's). Roads were less congested, car ownership was easy and I drove cars I had bought because I liked them and could just go out for a drive because I enjoyed it. I see it a chore now, just no enjoyment to be had from day-to-day driving, so avoided wherever possible. And I can't see my kids will ever get the same pleasure from driving I did.

 

[col]

If/when petrol hits £2.50 a litre, assuming wage inflation remains flat, so real incomes will be declining in real terms, will folk still have no choice but to use their cars, solo, to get to work?

If £2.50 won't do it, at what point does the habit get too expensive?

Id have signed on before 250p a litre, just not worth the long hours and travelling.

 

[MacB]

Id have signed on before 250p a litre, just not worth the long hours and travelling.

yeah like that's going to remain an ongoing option

 

[Wobblers]

I note your location: "A stones throw from Birmingham". I don't know for sure, but I am guessing it is a whole lot easier to find employment around your area than it is here (Ayrshire). You will just have to take my word for this; I have tried to find local work. There isn't anything suitable, so I face the prospect of travelling further from home. I think we are now back at post #3.

Deary me. So soon for the point scoring?

If you must know, my location in a major city is no coincidence: I moved here from Scotland exactly in order to get a job. It wasn't the first time I've had to do this, and I expect to have to move again in the next few months. Not something I really have much choice over, either.

I can assure you having to move to the other side of the country is rather more inconvenient than having to endure fuel going up by 5%. (And spare a thought for those poor suckers going nowhere on public transport: they're seeing rises of up to 10% or more.)

I'm not going to judge you for being unwilling to move - it's just not practical for many people. By the same token, I don't think a little bit of respect back is inappropriate, eh?

 

[mangaman]

Which words are you struggling with?

To be fair Adrian, I always find your huge and impenetrable posts beyond the pale.
If only you could stick to pithy, single sentence, somehow distilling whole deabates into clarity, posts - I could forgive you

I jest of course - you're my perennial nominee (in my head) for poster of the year.

Never angry / straight-forward / simple but devastatingly to the point posts. I can only look on in envy.

 

[Fab Foodie]

Too kind.

Agreed

 

[dellzeqq]

Yup!

 

[Inertia]

Ok I will add more than 2 words

I used to drive to work every day, I would see people cycling and knew they must be riding to work and was amazed by it. It seems silly now but I realise that a lot of drivers feel the way I did then, it seems totally alien to not drive in. It was so ingrained it didn’t seem possible or realistic. I now cycle in every day unless there is a reason for me to drive because I have to be somewhere after work or I need to pick something/someone up afterwards, apart from that its cycling all the way.

I would even drive to the chip shop which is about half a mile away without even thinking about it, now it’s easier just to cycle down and bung it in my pannier. It’s cheaper and I feel good about doing it.

It will take a shift in culture and unfortunately taxing is one of the best ways to force people to drive less. I already hear people talking about driving slower to save petrol and also using their bikes for work though safety is also a concern for people.

I’ve been nagging one friend who works less than a mile away from his home to cycle in for a few years now. Unfortunately he is too lazy to bike it there as every minute in bed is precious to him, he jumps up and barely has time to get dressed and in the car to get there on time. It would actually be faster for him to use his bike but he is too used to the car. He is actually considering it now though as he knows it will save a lot of money , plus he smokes and is trying to stop that too “I’m not paying more than £7 for cigs!”

The government IMO uses it simply as a way raise to money and not to actually as part of any agenda to improve our health or the environment. If they actually cared they would improve public transport too instead of building more roads which contradicts everything they say about getting people out of their cars.

I have genuine sympathy for people who have to travel long distances but surely there are solutions that dont involve moving house or quitting a job you may like to find one closer. More economical cars for one if there is no other alternative, or cycling one way and driving the other like Red Light suggested.

If we actually show a desire for alternatives maybe one will appear eventually. It boggles my mind that we invented so much and reached the internal combustion engine and then never found anything better since.

Ok Ive rambled on too much, hats off if you read all that but its just my thoughts

 

[Berlinbybike]

There are some interesting comments here but no-one's joined them up: in the world we live in much of what goes on is based on the ready availability of the internal combustion engine and cheap fuel for said machine; the disatrous economic management of the last 30 years or so has hammered living standards for all but a few; the era of cheap eneregy is well and truly over, even if we are prepared to fight further wars to secure supply; the political mantra has been "flexible workforce" which requires us all to work more, for less, with less protection. Net result? There are many people caught in a trap where they NEED an internal combustion-engined vehicle. It's precisely because there are so many jobs requiring skill and experience which pay very little that this happens - give someone a decent wage and sufficient employment protection and they will move for work. Otherwise, they are subsidising exploitative employers. So please, let's recognise the villains here, the people who STILL drive less than 5 miles for whatever reason, and not the hard-pressed making their way in the world who really do rely on a car. We all cycle (if you don't what are you doing on this forum?) so let's recognise that as very good thing.