Fuel prices on the up, so shouldn’t we use less?

Most of the cost is in the tax and the tax is higher in rural areas because the base cost is higher — principally because of lack of competition not simply between retailers, but between the wholesale companies. Compare the cost of petrol in the Outer Hebrides with that in Inverness — both delivered by the same seagoing tankers!

If you want to see a reduction in car travel, it’s not enough to up the price of fuel — that just reduces the choice of the poorer people in the community. Make the use of public transport more feasible and more people will use it. I’ve been trying for ten years to get some sort of board put up at at least one bus stop within our village indicating the times and destinations of buses departing from the village. Zero success. Typical.

It’s all well and good to say we should use cars less but what about those of us who require a car to travel to and from work, this is more important for people like me who have our own business and take some stock to work with us etc. It is hardly feasible to hop on a bus and travel with stock for our shop! I think the emphasis should be on new technology like Hydrogen fuel cell rather that electric cars, it’s all very well giving grants for electric cars and the like but has no-one realised that all the electricity to power them still needs generating in a power station? A Hydrogen fuel cell system would be a natural progression as it would still involve driving until you need to fill your car up then pulling into a filling station and filling up with Hydrogen which would take no longer than filling up now. ‘Filling up’ with electricity is more of an overnight/all day job.

Removing the exhaust catalyst would give us 10% more mpg I understand. Since it is only effective when warm, after about 10 miles and the average UK journey is less than 8 miles, why not simply remove this costly addition? This will save the environment by (i) saving energy and rare metals in making it (ii) again when it finally has to be disposed of safely and (iii) fuel as we do not use it!

You simply decide to trvel less by car and arrange things differently by adjusting your lifestile accordingly. Over the past five years my annual distance by car has fallen from 40 000Km to my current 10 000Km. Given that most people live in urban areas with public transport availability superior to my semi rural location, it is really a question of finding out what is available locally and using buses and trains as necessary (to link to these it is essential to get to know routes and times in advance – most of this information is available electronically nowadays). The critical element is the inclination to use taxis as link. You can be very sustainable and also reduce the necessity to fly as increasingly good surface and ferry links enable improved journey times especially on European inter-city routes. Frankly if you live in Truro you cannot do this but from London you will have excellent day travel by rail as far as Milan or Berlin.

Believe me the total spend on transport for work and social/ domestic calls, including getting to connect with continental journey hubs, is down by one third in real terms from what it was.

It’s not Rocket science and consideing that most people use the phone/telecoms their preferred use means you keep your precious car in the the security and peace of your garage – disturbing your banger or luxury limousine only when it is really essential.

Not sure if there’s any point in entering into this debate as the time may have passed for useful action, but here goes…..

According to James Hansen’s ‘Storms of My Grandchildren’ if all the fossil fuels are used up (and there’s no sign of this not happening) the Earth will lose all its atmosphere. Earth will end up like Mars. James Hansen worked on the NASA space programme as a climatologist for years.

Cutting down CO2-producing rainforest to grow bio fuels is madness and although life without oil may seem to be unthinkable, it is inevitable. No matter what Top Gear and Fifth Gear might say the car is a destructive dodo and its time ran out long ago.

There are 6.5 billion people on the Earth now. Without oil the Earth can only support 1.5 billion. So 5 billion will die. Climate change will add to that, as in Pakistan now.

Hot hatches and gas guzzlers in general should not be around and car journeys of less than 8 miles should be a criminal offence.

I gave up my car years ago and bought a bike. I haven’t looked back since and only ride around in my girlfriend’s car to keep her happy. Like other commentors she has to have a car for work.
That says something about how our lives have become locked in a death grip with the automobile.

I’ve got £50,000 in the bank and could have any car I wanted. but I wouldn’t own a car if you paid me.

Because oil is a limited resource it is obvious that we should use less. However the best way of doing this would be to use Public Transport and this, when it is compared to a car is inconvenient, unreliable, expensive, time consuming and impractical. It is not a viable alternative. If Public Transport was cheaper, faster, arranged so that the bus and train used the same terminus and also coordinated so that the bus arrives before the train departs, people would be more likely to use it. If I want to go by bus anywhere other than the town centre, I have to go in to the centre and back out again. How is that an alternative? Whilst a car may be expensive with a single occupant, when it has four occupants and luggage it is still the cheapest way to travel. The Government seem to think that making fuel more expensive will force us to use Public Transport, but until this is convenient, reliable, cheaper, coordinated and practical, this will not happen.