to want to shout out 'OIL is not a never ending resource and it IS going to run out'

[beaniesteve]

Because I am fed up with all the emails I am getting about this Boycott and that protest. Before long Petrol will be so expensive that people will have to start looking at alternative methods of transport. We will have to get on our bikes, or use public transport regardless of how rubbish it is or how far away it is.

Am I being unreasonable to think that people just need to get real?

**NB this is in no way a comment about the other AIBU thread about Deisel, I only just noticed that one was at the top of the page)

How can you make a sweeping statement like "And most people definitely do not need two cars." Do you know most people?

I'll tell you why we need 2 cars. DH works nights. He used to finish at 7am so he could get home in time for the rest of us to leave the house. They changed his contract so he had to work until 8am. No choice and a huge inconvenience. He is rarely home before 9am. While I was recovering from my CS the boys were late for school every single day.

I take 2 teenagers and a baby in my car to my work. The baby is in nursery 2 minutes walk from my work (deliberately) and the boys have a 20 minute walk from my work to school. The school bus was £300 a term each when we made enquiries and at the time we had 3 of them at the same school.

DH tried to go to work by train but he didn't get home until after 10am then had to leave at 7pm to go back (or earlier if he took the bus to the station) so wasn't getting enough sleep or time at home.

Do you think we'd pay out 2 lots of fuel, insurance, tax, repairs if we could manage with one car?

The price has gone up so much and yet there are still just as many cars on the road. I often wonder how many of those cars actually need to be on the road?

Yes, well, that's what Band D is in Edinburgh, riven.

Not too bad?

On £17,000/year (too much to claim WTC or council tax benefit), that's a pretty big chunk of your income.

Then there's the £700-£800/month in rent on the tiny two bed flat.

Then there's the leccy and the other bills and guess what? On that wage, you've got debt.

It's a moot point for us, because there's no way we could afford to live in a city again.

Like I said, I'm glad it worked for you, but it's not a solution, especially when you consider how affordable housing in cities is in such a crisis as it is.

Having more people flood in isn't going to help matters.

LittleBella my work (Govt dept) has a green transport plan... or they did a few years ago. Their latest plan is moving all their employees from local offices to central city centre offices. We can all travel up to an hour each way. Because that's a green travel plan

LOL Evenhope, very green. It's very telling as well, that all the efforts in taking cars off the road are being targetted at the school run.

The majority of pupils walk to school. But a minority are driven, mainly because their mothers drive them and their mothers have a paid job which they need to get to at a certain time.

And somehow, the fact that school run traffic takes up about 20% of traffic in rush hour, attracts more attention than commuting cars which take up 80% of traffic. And all the effort at car control seems to be directed towards the 20% instead of the 80% as if one group has a choice and the other group doesn't. I wonder why?

Tax credits are SHIT.

How about just not taxing low income people so much so they keep more of their money and raising the personal threshold?

They FUCKED up our tax credits, cut us off when I was on £13,000/pa and left us high and dry for months.

Whilst I argued with them and sent them letters.

They wrote off our 'debt'. After 7 months of hell and using credit cards.

We were compensated a whole £100. Wow!

Thanks, Gordon.

For making us out to be criminals and benefits scroungers for no other reason than being low income.

I curse him to the core of my soul.

oh expat tax credits may be shit, but they are much better than the alternative.

I get an extra £400 a month from tax credits. There is simply no way any govt would let me keep that in tax - in fact, I don't earn enough to pay that much tax.

OK I should be getting an extra £550 but due to an overpayment of 2000 effing pounds in spite of having told them of every change of circumstance last year, it's down to about 400, that's still more than any Tory govt would give me. Be careful what you wish for.

What? Not taxing low income people so much and raising hte personal threshold isn't an alternative?

Why not?

I feel sorry that people think that's the best they can get.

And anyone who's says they're great hasn't had the experience of their telling you they've overpaid you and cutting you off completely.

There's at least one thread a week on here with people made desperate by their cockups, which cost the taxpayer £1bn last year.

It costs a further £500k+/year to run the bureaucracy to administer them.

And here in Scotland, we have an alternative to Tories and Labour.

It wouldn't be for me Expat.

They would have to have me on a 0% rate of tax, and my total net income would still be lower than it is now.

They don't work well for married couples, LB.

They really don't.

But that's Labour for ya.

But for me and thousands of other people, they are great.

Yes the admin around it is shit. Every year the fuckers tell me I'm overpaid and they have to reduce my payments.

But I'm still better off than if they didn't exist.

I'm really with expat. We live in the far south west. There is no public transport- we live in the place with the biggest gap between average wage and house prices. People are really struggling.

I'd love to use public transport more - but it's dreadful. We moved from London- completely different story.

And yet tax credits are shite. I've posted on here before about them overpaying me by 9 grand in one chunk (plus extra before that). have been trying to given them back the overpayments for 9 months now. I know they're going to demand it suddenly (and some of it was sent in cheques that they agreed we shouldn't cash- and I know they'll demand those back at the same time). Pigs ear. I'm sure it will end up costing us money because I can't see them getting the repayment right.

They overpaid me once by 8 grand and I put it in a high interest account

Naturally, I didn't offer them back the interest.

I'm going to start a separate thread about tax credits because I'm interested in this - I wonder if you're right expat and they are working (sort of, aftger a fashion) for lone parents but not for married couples.

oooh how long did they take to ask for it back (my 9 grand is in premium bonds at the moment )

The difficult thing is that many people from developing countries are now finding themselves in the position to be able to afford cars. This is going to put a huge strain on resources but who can blame them?

Not sure how I feel about the expansion of the nuclear power industry

JJ - htey never asked for it back, they just underpaid me the year after. Which diddn't matter, because I still had that stash in the bank to draw on and more than I would have ahd because of the interest!

not to mention the commercial demand going up.

in developing countries as well.

but how fair is it of the West to say, 'Well, we can have it, but you, developing nation/continent, are not entitled to the same creature comforts we have because it's damaging to the environment'?

I'm hoping they'll agree to that with us Little Bella, but the amount we should be paid is miniscule (they missed a zero off dh's salary- hence the cock up).

I'm still not convinced they've taken into account ds1 though (should get paid extra for severe disability apparently).

I thought I read somewhere that some council vehicles were being run on sheep's wee - I may be wrong (I think I'm right though?).

Public transport is WOEFUL. Train prices and services are ridiculous, buses don't turn up when they say they will.

Surely the answer has to be biofuels? If it was regulated strictly enough that all the land was taken over for biofuels then I think it could work?

Funnily enough, this is quite a 'hot topic' on the Archers at the mo