fuel prices!!!
- Thread starter kained&able
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fredfelt
Mostly unknown member
I must be wrong then.
But, regardless of the truth in it, they can afford to.
The truth is distorted in that graph - the x axis misses out years.
mhendo
Aussie in San Francisco
Exactly.
I'm visiting relatives in San Francisco right now. Like most of California, the city is in a massive budget crisis, and is looking for ways to cut costs and increase revenue, while trying not to raise taxes.
One of the first things they did was to increase the prices on the city's public transportation system. Prices on BART (the subway system) rose about 17%, and prices on MUNI (the bus and streetcar system) went up 33%. But they didn't hike the price of parking meters or city-owned parking. Great way to encourage people to use public transport.
And San Francisco is one of the best public transit cities in the country. Things are much worse in other places.
Oswaldtwistle
Banned
There is certainly something in what you say, it does seem silly to tax motorists with one hand (because they are supposedly 'bad') and then spend a fortune building roads and bailing out car makers!!
However I'm not convinced that the cost of motoring is falling for low income people. New cars may have got cheaper, but that doesn't help the average working class motorist for whom a car even from the century is a luxury he can ill afford.
Now you see, it's phrases like 'the motorist' which annoys me, implying anyone who soils their hands on an automobile is alike and belongs to this uniform sub-species of evil humans called 'motorists'
Yes fuel taxes hit petrolheads who drive round our estates like w*nkers, but they also hit people driving up the road to care for granny.
Yes fuel taxes hit the bloke going to the hunt in his Range Rover, but they also hit my friends moving speakers, mixing desks and instruments to a NO2ID fundraising gig last night.
Yes fuel taxes hit the Daily Mail readers, but they also hit Daily Mirror readers and folks who haven't read a newspaper for years...
The population just doesn't break down neatly into 'sound' people who never drive and 'bad' people who do. It just isn't like that, and if you think it is, I'd ask how often you go outside the M25. On the average road outside London, you'll find every income group, every ethnicity, most age groups.
In fact just about every group apart from the Blind. And I wonder about that, sometimes
fredfelt
Mostly unknown member
There is certainly something in what you say, it does seem silly to tax motorists with one hand (because they are supposedly 'bad') and then spend a fortune building roads and bailing out car makers!!
However I'm not convinced that the cost of motoring is falling for low income people. New cars may have got cheaper, but that doesn't help the average working class motorist for whom a car even from the century is a luxury he can ill afford.
Now you see, it's phrases like 'the motorist' which annoys me, implying anyone who soils their hands on an automobile is alike and belongs to this uniform sub-species of evil humans called 'motorists'
Yes fuel taxes hit petrolheads who drive round our estates like w*nkers, but they also hit people driving up the road to care for granny.
Yes fuel taxes hit the bloke going to the hunt in his Range Rover, but they also hit my friends moving speakers, mixing desks and instruments to a NO2ID fundraising gig last night.
Yes fuel taxes hit the Daily Mail readers, but they also hit Daily Mirror readers and folks who haven't read a newspaper for years...
The population just doesn't break down neatly into 'sound' people who never drive and 'bad' people who do. It just isn't like that, and if you think it is, I'd ask how often you go outside the M25. On the average road outside London, you'll find every income group, every ethnicity, most age groups.
In fact just about every group apart from the Blind. And I wonder about that, sometimes
By 'motorist' I mean someone who drives. Seems like a valid description to me. I include myself in it. You say the phrase annoys you but you also use it.
To assess the social inequality aspect of fuel costs you must first understand that income is closely related to car owner ship. Many of worst off people don't own vehicles at all - and as fuel can only get more expensive to redress this balance greater access to public transport has to be more of a priority. Additionally looking at income, and income tax and distribution of wealth is a far more effective method of addressing poverty than reducing fuel costs.
I've never suggested that driver = bad or anything like that. Cars are really useful and also essential for many. However to me it seems clear that as a society becomes increasingly car dependant it becomes less equitable (look at our Northern European neighbours). Every year the number of cars on our roads increase, with this trend it becomes harder to give public transport the attention it deserves. It also squeezes more pedestrians and cyclists off the roads - or at least makes things more dangerous for them.
In your example of people driving around for grannies are hit by rising fuel costs. However give the granny a bus service, local shops, safe pavements, clean air, a healthy active live, and far more of them will be self sufficient.
elbows
Well-Known Member
I struggle to believe that we really have the biggest road building program in our history right now. I thought they were doing as little as possible, eg using the hard shoulder on some motorways rather than build new lanes.
What sort of road building projects are going on? Maybe the costs are the highest ever but in terms of whats achieved I struggle to see how it would compare to the era when the motorways were first built.
Not that I want more effort in this regard, we should be planning for less capacity in future, not more.
Oswaldtwistle
Banned
Sure, because there aren't many alternatives! I just don't like the idea that drivers, motorists, call em what you will are some uniform group of 'bad' people.
Not my experience. You only need to look at the parking problems in Normanton (poorest area of Derby with wall-to wall terrace housing) to disprove this.
Fine in theory, I don't see it happening in practice. What are you saying, we should cut income tax? That just ain't going to happen in the present climate- even the Tories are talking about an income tax rise!
Taxes are going to have to go up. It's just a question of which ones. I'm arguing against *further* rises of this particular tax, because I believe it is high enough already. Even without the fuel duty escalator,
Sure. But are you saying those grannies should no longer recieve visits from family?
There are plenty of older people who are far from highly dependent, but who's lives would be poorer without visits two or three times a week to help with odd jobs and see the grandkids.....
Just an example...people won't stop visiting relatives if they can help it, although I can also see a world where people stop doing things like helping with Scout groups/sports clubs and the like because of the cost of getting there.
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