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Not sure if it's much the same all over the world, but in the UK our fuel
prices are rising ever higher! Infact, last time the price per litre got
this high, there was a strike. Now I'm not a tight arse or nything, but
£1.09 a litre for unleaded or £1.18 a litre for diesel is a silly price to
pay! (the price for diesel is the highest I've found in my area, and is
from yesterday). In my opinion it would be much better to integrate road
taxing with fuel pricing so as to at least make the price hikes more
acceptable. Other unacceptable price increases are road tax (increased to
as much as £400pa for cars with 2.0-litre engines or larger), more tolls on
roads with heavy congestion and further congestion charging in and around
City centres. I'm all for extra charges if they really are due to pullution
etc, and to help save the planet, but for this to work, the Government
needs to work on cleaner (both hygenically and ecconomically), cheaper
public transport, and they need to do more to make smaller engined cars
more acceptable (other than reducing road pricing for them, exemptions for
congestion charging and cheaper tax bands would be nice (even cheper thanb
they are already)). I'm interested to hear opinion on this from people all
over the world. I'm sure there's been similar threads to this before, but
it's high time we had another!
Cliffy
most of that was Greek to my, maybe you could give us an idea of how your
tax system works.
As for taxes, I believe that people can make their own choices, they don't
need the government encouraging them to do certain things. Why should there
be gas guzzler taxes? if I can afford to pay for the gas, well good for me,
I shouldn't have to pay more for it. Not that I could afford gas for a
hummer, not that gas prices aren't bugging me, but let the fair market take
care of it. If gas prices keep going up, Hybrids will be a more cost
effective alternative, and eventually gas prices will go back down. Works
the same way with the housing market around here. Of course gas prices are
a little more painful, and effects many more people, but the price of gas
will get more people to conserve than the government preaching to us.
Don't like the price of gas? Move closer to work, get a job closer to home,
buy local produce, get on your bike, get a push mower:mrgreen:, use wood
heat, add some insulation, don't start your car to warm it up in the
morning, get a more efficient model, check your tire pressure, turn off the
A/C, accelerate more gently, combine trips.... There are so many things
that we could do by ourselves, we don't really need the government sticking
their stick fingers in it.
dvdrose18
Our laws state that we have to tax our vehicles, and as an easy way of
showing this, we must have a circle disc in the front windscreen. How much
you paid used to be determined by the sized of the engine alone. Up to
1.4-litres was around £60 per 6 months or £100pa, above 1.4-litre used to
be £99 per six months or £160pa (I think I have that correct....). In the
new order of things it's done mainly on emissions, so if you have a small
car that's good in that way, fine, however, alot of older cars (not much
older though) would find themselves in the higher tax bracket (anything up
to £400pa...I'm guessing it would be just over half that for six
monthly).
I'm not sure how diesels are branded though. Diesel fuel alone is much more
costly than petrol, so if the tax bands are now most costly too, it
probably won't be worthwhile running a diesel anymore (it used to be the
other way around in the UK). The bottom line here from my point of view is,
yes, the Government could probably justify taxing larger SUVs £400pa
because over here most are only used around town, and most users of big
SUVs (especially the Range Rovers etc) could either afford the £400 for
road taxing, or could afford to down-grade to a smaller, more
environmentally friendly vehicle. One of the obvious downsides though, is
that some people (farmers etc), have a genuine need for such vehicles. I
think I covered most of the points here now, lol.
Cliffy
I don't like the idea of the government getting in our lives too much, but
when you buy a "gas guzzler" you're not the only one paying more. If you
need more gasoline, but the supply stays the same, guess what happens? The
price goes up for all of us. Even if I never used a drop of oil in my
life, I'd still have to pay more for my goods. This discourages people
from buying cars they don't need and lowers the taxes for people who buy
normal cars.
I'd say that the amount of people in the car/truck should be considered as
well for fairness (a Hummer with 5 adults is more effecient than a Prius
with 1), but that would get complicated. If I bought a new car and was
charged the tax, I'd write the check and be done with it. I'm (minimally)
raising the costs of pretty much everything for other people by buying this
car, might as well give some back.
Back to what Cliffy said though, around Boston they have the "T", basically
the best way to get around the city. The Massachusetts Transit Authority
runs the system of trains, busses, and subways. Given the hard task of
finding a parking spot in downtown Boston, and the fact that it can easily
cost $20 to park when you do find one, the T is pretty popular.
However, it could be more popular, obvious by the constant traffic
throughout the city. If the system were made free there's no doubt people
would be more likely to travel throughout the city, I'm guessing the money
saved in road costs and the money made from a slight increase in business
in downtown would nearly offset the cost to upgrade the system to suit more
people.
giant016
Yeah, they are extremely high here too--last time they were this high was
during the oil crisis in the 70's (after you factor inflation), but
economists estimate that oil prices should actually be closer to $70 a
barrel (as opposed to the $110 that they are now).
Expect them to go up in the next couple of months when refineries switch to
their summer blends, but oil prices will probably go down soon.
chris_knows
Gas prices are nearly 4$ a gallon for unleaded.. its rediculious.
Jpos
They are a lot higher in Europe--in England, where Cliffy lives, it would
cost you $8.26 U.S. dollars to buy one gallon of gas...
chris_knows
Yea, the way the economy is right now we are probably just seeing the best
of it as from the estimates that they say it could even rise even more.
Which heaven-forbid it will not.
Guru
its 3.50 for regular down here
99integra
