The Student Room Group

Fuel Prices, protests and hauliers

Just wondering if anyone agress with me on the following. That it is not up to farmers and truckers to dictate government finance policy by blockading oil depots. They are unelected and accountable to no one. The government is, however, and if the public fell agrived they should take their grievences up with their MPs and when ele elections come, give the government a piece of their mind. i never voted for 'farmers for action' to take over the treasurary, so why should they force a cut in fuel duty?
That forcing up the price of road hauage is a good thing. Prior to rail privitisation under the Tories a large variety of goods were moved by rail, and they still are - EWS is doing a brisk trade. However, many smaller users were forced out of the rail market by the bizare pricing structure that accompanied the sectorisation of BR freight division. Th sole intension of these was to force smaller users of the rail in order to make the railfreight sub-sectors mare attractive to private buyers. Rail haulage has a number of advantages over road - it is much better for the environment, it causes less infrastrucure damage then lorries on the roads, economies of scale can be applied, it is an efficent use of the extensive public investment that is the rail network by night, it is often faster then the roads and offers more certainty of delivery time- why is the post office comming back to the rails?
I just thinck that these increases can only be a good thing if the force an evaluation of the perveristy that is goods haulage in this country.
Any comments please...

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Reply 1
I agree with you completely I think that it is possibles a good thing that the petrol prices are so high because oil is going to run out and rising prices may reduce consumption. It is also good news for the environment. I don't think that pressure groups should be able to dictate what the government does. If the people don't like it they will vote in another party at the next election. I also think that Michael howard is supporting the go slow in a desparate attempt to gain public support with no thought to the damage it may cause. This has reassured me that not voting tory on june the 10th is the right thing to do.
Reply 2
randdom
I agree with you completely I think that it is possibles a good thing that the petrol prices are so high because oil is going to run out and rising prices may reduce consumption. It is also good news for the environment.
Another zombie from the Green party's media world. Oil is not going to run out anytime soon. Rising prices will reduce consumption in how long? Likely to take years for that to take dubious effect.
Reply 3
2776
Another zombie from the Green party's media world. Oil is not going to run out anytime soon. Rising prices will reduce consumption in how long? Likely to take years for that to take dubious effect.


I don't support the Green party my awareness of the reduction in fossil fuels actually comes from what I have learnt in school. I think 50 years which is the minimum time tha crude oil will run out in maybe up to 100 years is still a very short time. Fossil fuels are finite fuel and they will run out. People will reduce their consumption if it costs them a fortune to drive. Carbon dioxide emmissions have been strongly linked to global warming or these things aren't just media hype. Fuel emmissions are good for the environment and Oil, coal and natural gas will run out.
Reply 4
randdom
I don't support the Green party my awareness of the reduction in fossil fuels actually comes from what I have learnt in school. I think 50 years which is the minimum time tha crude oil will run out in maybe up to 100 years is still a very short time. Fossil fuels are finite fuel and they will run out. People will reduce their consumption if it costs them a fortune to drive. Carbon dioxide emmissions have been strongly linked to global warming or these things aren't just media hype. Fuel emmissions are good for the environment and Oil, coal and natural gas will run out.


Your just being silly. If the cost of the fuel continues to rise people will still be forced to purchased it to enable travelling to work etc. The cost of products in the stores and public services will also rise to compensate for the rise. It's a complete rip off at 73.9 pence a litre let along the new 90 odd pence. Considering the government are already getting 47 pence tax per litre why should we be paying this?

I fully support the protest and look forward to when it begins again.
ToshTrent
Your just being silly. If the cost of the fuel continues to rise people will still be forced to purchased it to enable travelling to work etc. The cost of products in the stores and public services will also rise to compensate for the rise. It's a complete rip off at 73.9 pence a litre let along the new 90 odd pence. Considering the government are already getting 47 pence tax per litre why should we be paying this?

I fully support the protest and look forward to when it begins again.

umm - it's entirely possible to live nearer to your workplace which lets you travel to work for free (bike/walk) or for not a lot of money (bus/train).

People are too dependent on their cars...promoting an incentive that will force people to think twice about where they live and how they travel is a good thing.
Oliver Letwin said on the radio this morning that he'd go and protest with them.
Baron Huntroyde
Oliver Letwin said on the radio this morning that he'd go and protest with them.

heheehe - he'd hypnotise the police with his bizarre hair :wink:
Reply 8
ToshTrent
Your just being silly. If the cost of the fuel continues to rise people will still be forced to purchased it to enable travelling to work etc. The cost of products in the stores and public services will also rise to compensate for the rise. It's a complete rip off at 73.9 pence a litre let along the new 90 odd pence. Considering the government are already getting 47 pence tax per litre why should we be paying this?

I fully support the protest and look forward to when it begins again.



well said
Reply 9
Pencil Queen
umm - it's entirely possible to live nearer to your workplace which lets you travel to work for free (bike/walk) or for not a lot of money (bus/train).

People are too dependent on their cars...promoting an incentive that will force people to think twice about where they live and how they travel is a good thing.



So you expect more people to move to our already overcrowded cities and attempt to use our collapsing public transport system??? Who is going to pay for these people to pay the higher house prices/rents in the city???

People who use their cars do so because they cannot get to work on public transport or because it is too unreliable. Petrol in this country costs more than three times as much as in america and we are second in europe only to the Netherlands for fuel prices, and they at least have a decent public transport system.

Admitredly cars do cause damage to the environment but untill there are viable alternatives to using a car people will continue to do so. The damage that the high fuel prices have on hauliers and industry as a whole is obvious and they have every right to protest
Reply 10
Baron Huntroyde
Oliver Letwin said on the radio this morning that he'd go and protest with them.

Don't know why. The protestors hate him because it was the Tories who introduced the fuel escalator.
Cossack
So you expect more people to move to our already overcrowded cities and attempt to use our collapsing public transport system??? Who is going to pay for these people to pay the higher house prices/rents in the city???

Employers - if they want staff and base their businesses in inner city areas or in areas inaccessible by public transport employers will have to start funding either higher wages to pay for workers to live near by or for them to pay for petrol/public transport costs.

People who use their cars do so because they cannot get to work on public transport or because it is too unreliable.

I know - I personally drive 70 miles + a day. I *could* get to work on public transport, in fact it was one of the first things I checked out when getting my job. The alternative public transport route would mean travelling for 4+ hours a day instead of 2 1/2-3 and would severely reduce my working hours.

I also car share and work from home whenever possible, and I would be willing to move closer to work (unforunately my partners health needs make this unviable at the moment).

Funnily enough most cars are pretty unreliable (my first month of working this far away from home I managed to lose a head gasket and an alternator...luckily I was able to take the alternative public transport option) - at least if not more so than public transport.

As for this
The damage that the high fuel prices have on hauliers and industry as a whole is obvious and they have every right to protest


They do have a right to protest - they do not have a right to disrupt petrol stations/refinaries - that's the equivalent of secondary pickoting and illegal...they also do not have the right to purposely obstruct a public highway through the use of go-slows - that's also illegal.

If they want to protest in the same manner as the countryside alliance or the tuition fee protesters then fine - I have no problems....if they think that they have the right to break the law then they deserve everything that comes to them.
Reply 12
Pencil Queen
I know - I personally drive 70 miles + a day.

You drive 70 miles a day to work! Sounds like my idea of hell :eek:
shiny
You drive 70 miles a day to work! Sounds like my idea of hell :eek:

40 miles on the way in and 30 home again (because the car share adds an extra 10 miles onto my overall journey...but 1*70 is better then 2*60)
:smile:
Reply 14
Pencil Queen
Employers - if they want staff and base their businesses in inner city areas or in areas inaccessible by public transport employers will have to start funding either higher wages to pay for workers to live near by or for them to pay for petrol/public transport costs.
.


How are these business expected to pay these higher wages when the chances are that they are already suffering from the high cost of petrol and the effect this has on their costs. I think the majority of business would want to move out of cities/urban areas, for most however this would not be possible...

seventy miles a day though... i salute you
Cossack
How are these business expected to pay these higher wages when the chances are that they are already suffering from the high cost of petrol and the effect this has on their costs. I think the majority of business would want to move out of cities/urban areas, for most however this would not be possible...

seventy miles a day though... i salute you

The thing is there is nothing stopping a lot of businesses relocating to areas where there are plenty of people either within walking/cycling distance or well connected public transport. My partners employer moved from a semi rural location to a fully rural one - there's now no way my partner could get to his workplace other than by car (ironically about 6 months after they moved we moved house to somewhere within reasonable walking distance of the old premises :rolleyes: ).

I used to work at a cinema which had 10,000 people within 20 minutes walking distance - and it wasn't in a town centre it was just in a suburb which happened to have a lot of people living close together (good old terraced housing :wink:)...it was 20 minutes train journey (or 30 minutes car ride) to Liverpool city centre.

Businesses tend to make the problem worse though by showing preference for premises with lots of parking space rather than premises near to bus stations/trainstations/cycle routes.

A change of attitude on the part of everyone could make a real difference - rather than complaining and obstructing change we need to start embracing it...especially like in this case were more cars is never ever going to be a good thing - I swear there are people in this country who do no more walking than the journey from the house to car then from car to work/shops/gym (to spend half an hour on a treadmill)...I feel very sorry for them.
Reply 16
I really can't see how it's possible to justify taxing anything to the point that you pay three times more in taxes than you do for the product itself.
Reply 17
The supposed "right" for quick and easy travel and cheap fuel is only a very recent development. Even compared with twenty years ago the price of fuel is comparatively low. Given that motorists do more damage and kill more people than drug addicts I have no oibjection to squeezing the pipsqueaks till their pips squeak. They've got legs, so they can use them to walk, instead of pressing pedals in cars.
Reply 18
I am a walking/running/a bit of cycling man meself :smile:
I'd love to walk to work - I still get to walk across campus from my car (about a 10 minute walk and a very nice one too - saw some ickle baby ducklings this morning) but it's not as nice as walking the entire trip.

My other half works from home one day a week and I'm working on getting it standard for me too.

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