What might be the effects of the rapidly increasing motor vehicle fuel costs?

[pwa]

Fuel price is an unfair way of limiting car use. But it can be effective. It is the budget conscious families and poor pensioners who get squeezed, but the idea of the car draining the household budget does reduce car use. I noticed a drop in traffic about seven years ago when higher fuel prices coincided with austerity and the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. I think some people just thought a bit more carefully about car journeys, whether they were necessary or whether two journeys could be combined.

[horizon]

We're due to make one of our regular trips to France in the next couple of weeks, and that's something that's only practicable for us in the car.

The car is so cheap, convenient and practicable that we've decided to go to France on regular trips in it.

FTFY

[horizon]

Fuel price is an unfair way of limiting car use.

Everything else* is done on price - that's how modern economy works. But I would be delighted with fuel rationing.

*Except road space. This is free and people queue up to use it, much as they had to queue for everything in the old Soviet Union and which we were told was so awful. Funny that.

[pwa]

Fuel price is an unfair way of limiting car use.

Everything else* is done on price - that's how modern economy works. But I would be delighted with fuel rationing.

*Except road space. This is free and people queue up to use it, much as they had to queue for everything in the old Soviet Union and which we were told was so awful. Funny that.

One positive aspect of using higher fuel prices to reduce car use is that the people who pay most are those with the thirstiest cars doing the highest mileage. Those with smaller more frugal cars, using them sparingly, will pay less. So the high mileage Range Rover driver pays much more through the pump than the low mileage Citroen C1 driver.

[horizon]

One positive aspect of using higher fuel prices to reduce car use is that the people who pay most are those with the thirstiest cars doing the highest mileage. Those with smaller more frugal cars, using them sparingly, will pay less. So the high mileage Range Rover driver pays much more through the pump than the low mileage Citroen C1 driver.

Spot on. I also think that road tax should be lower on older cars to benefit low income persons/ families. All this misery and pain rubbish put out by the motoring organisations is comical - one often has to remind people to turn their engines off while they chat to friends at the road side. Fuel is cheap, cheap and cheap except that it is hugely costly.

[[XAP]Bob]

There is no road tax - but yes, putting ved on fuel would also be a good option.

[reohn2]

Rubbish - for many people they can't imagine an alternative - because they don't feel the pinch nearly enough.

They can't imagine an alternative because they've been painted into a corner by bad public transport and a fear of cycling on UK roads.
We can go on all we(as cyclists)like about how safe cycling is,but if it's perceived as dangerous by those that don't currently cycle and as the present p*** poor train services are anything to go by people are forced to use the car.
Add to that a government that's doing nothing for cycling or public transport but who thinks the only way forward is to build more roads

More roads would be helpful, but its only a factor. I see the roads as a glass, and vehicles as water. Now when I get a glass of water I turn the tap on until the glass is nearly full, then turn it off. Using this analogy, whats happening with Britains roads is that the glass is more or less full and the tap has been left on.

A possible solution to this problem would be to limit the amount of driving tests available. For example, another slot for someone to take a driving test would open up when another driver has passed away, been banned, jailed or emigrated etc. The logistics of this system would likely be messy, but I see no other way other than to just keep the tap on.
This is a problem exacerbated by the changes to the motorcycle testing procedure, which basically results in bikers having to take multiple tests. I would revert back to the previous way and not have a limit on 2 wheelers going for a test. Am I biased? Quite possibly, but the logic here is that bikes take up much less space than cars. Congestion would be much less of a problem if every car was a motorbike. There is no perfect solution but this is the best one I can come up with.

A different glass(public transport)that holds enough water than smaller glasses would be a better option IMO.

[reohn2]

There is no road tax - but yes, putting ved on fuel would also be a good option.

Been saying it for years...

[Mark R]

Yep, just need some system to discourage people from owning multiple vehicles and leaving them cluttering up the streets....an end to free on street parking perhaps?

P.s as a cyclist and a motorist, i'd love it if fuel became so expensive that people only drove when there was some really compelling reason for it. £2/litre would still be 'cheap' IMO....

[661-Pete]

We're due to make one of our regular trips to France in the next couple of weeks, and that's something that's only practicable for us in the car.

The car is so cheap, convenient and practicable that we've decided to go to France on regular trips in it.

FTFY

That's a bit below-the-belt, if you don't mind my saying so, seeing as I've said nothing as to why we find the car more practicable in this instance. Moreover, we shall probably be selling up the French house in the not-too-distant future. Unfortunately it needs work done on it: also it's not a 'seller's market' at present...

[[XAP]Bob]

We're due to make one of our regular trips to France in the next couple of weeks, and that's something that's only practicable for us in the car.

The car is so cheap, convenient and practicable that we've decided to go to France on regular trips in it.

FTFY

That's a bit below-the-belt, if you don't mind my saying so, seeing as I've said nothing as to why we find the car more practicable in this instance. Moreover, we shall probably be selling up the French house in the not-too-distant future. Unfortunately it needs work done on it: also it's not a 'seller's market' at present...

If the car wasn't so cheap and practical then most people who did regular long trips wouldn't do them, or would do them differently (less frequently, or find that actually the train does work).

I certainly wouldn't have done a 70 mile each way daily commute for three years...

[Pastychomper]

One positive aspect of using higher fuel prices to reduce car use is that the people who pay most are those with the thirstiest cars doing the highest mileage. Those with smaller more frugal cars, using them sparingly, will pay less. So the high mileage Range Rover driver pays much more through the pump than the low mileage Citroen C1 driver.

I agree it tends to increase efficiency, but it also disproportionately penalises anyone living in a rural area. Farmers are partly immune as their work vehicles can run on red diesel, but non-farmers (including a lot of smallholders) don't generally have that luxury. Where I live a "traffic jam" means waiting a few minutes while cattle are herded along the road, and food miles can be (though are not always) lower than for city dwellers, but any journey considered too long for a bike means waiting for the occasional bus or driving a car. For most of my neighbours that includes trips to town.

[pwa]

One positive aspect of using higher fuel prices to reduce car use is that the people who pay most are those with the thirstiest cars doing the highest mileage. Those with smaller more frugal cars, using them sparingly, will pay less. So the high mileage Range Rover driver pays much more through the pump than the low mileage Citroen C1 driver.

I agree it tends to increase efficiency, but it also disproportionately penalises anyone living in a rural area. Farmers are partly immune as their work vehicles can run on red diesel, but non-farmers (including a lot of smallholders) don't generally have that luxury. Where I live a "traffic jam" means waiting a few minutes while cattle are herded along the road, and food miles can be (though are not always) lower than for city dwellers, but any journey considered too long for a bike means waiting for the occasional bus or driving a car. For most of my neighbours that includes trips to town.

Similar here, though (as you will know) rural miles use a lot less fuel than the same number of urban miles.

[horizon]

We're due to make one of our regular trips to France in the next couple of weeks, and that's something that's only practicable for us in the car.

The car is so cheap, convenient and practicable that we've decided to go to France on regular trips in it.

FTFY

That's a bit below-the-belt

661-Pete: my apologies. this wasn't aimed at you personally but was making the point that the car determines the journeys, not the other way round. It is easy to think (and we all do it) that car is essential for what we want to do when in fact what we want to do is created by the possibility of going by car. We have created a dependance on the car (which at one point was a huge help) which is threatened by things like jams and fuel prices.

I don't blame you at all for doing what you do but a nudge from the government in the form of higher fuel prices would help us all to make better choices for the world.

[mjr]

I agree it tends to increase efficiency, but it also disproportionately penalises anyone living in a rural area.

That's one way of looking at it. Another is that the current flawed approach to public transport by letting private enterprise run riot is what really disproportionately penalises anyone living in a rural area by removing an alternative that city-dwellers often use to give up cars.

Well-managed public transport would aim to maximise ridership by restricting services to major connecting roads (not necessarily A/B roads - probably often their bypassed former routes) and providing adequate waiting spaces for people who walked or cycled reasonable short distances to them, with coordinated connections at hubs, but private mass transport operators seem content to target a rather small market of people who don't care when or how long it takes if it passes close to their home and destination and to refuse to coordinate with other services as much as possible and even engage in a perpetual leapfrog of front-running each other on the few popular routes which have developed either as hangovers from when public transport was public-owned (route 7 in Weston-super-Mare was one - few private operators would launch a stopping service which went straight along a former B road) or from lack of alternatives (routes along the coast or which have to use one of few roads through forests, but even there, operators seem happy to delay them by loops around village streets whenever possible). You can see how private operators often even divert so-called express X services through small village roads and suburban housing estates to serve their small market who don't care about journey time, rendering them less useful for medium or long distance journeys.

So I'd welcome higher fuel prices but we'd need to get a grip on rural mass transport.