Petrol Prices

[CrosswordAddict]

Are any other Mumsnetters worried about the rise in petrol prices?
We use the bus as much as poss but we live in a rural area and children need collecting from playdates etc. They use a weekly bus pass for school.
I know people will say I am lucky to have a car but surely these prices affect everyone, even those without a car as it will gradually put up the price of goods, services, public transport etc. It's easy money for the govt. to collect the tax on fuel. Any views?

It is going to affect prices and disposable incomes but, then again, oil is a finite and polluting resource. We've been unsuccessful as a society at reducing our reliance on the internal combustion engine. If higher pump prices mean that alternative methods of transport become more commercially viable and if we have to rethink the way in which goods and services get to us then it might ultimately prove to have been the catalyst for change. Think an integrated 'green' transport plan is long overdue. Short-term, I agree, it's just making life more expensive all round.

The only thing I don't understand is why there hasn't been more if a public outcry and protest about the prices of fuel.

curlymama I agee with you but I think the big transport/truck firms are protesting but ordinary car drivers are not saying much. Even if we don't own a car, the prices of everything we buy will be affected by the rise in petrol/diesel so we can't just shrug and say "it won't bother me". I feel vaguely uneasy about it as I think it's going to sneak up and "bite us on the bum" as they say. No-one on Mumsnet seems very bothered, do they?

What curlymama said.
Tell me where the protest is and I will join it.

It may push the economy back into recession as people are not getting inflation matching pay rises. The net result is if people have to pay more for petrol (and food) they have less to spend on other things - hence they consume less and teh economy shrinks.

We are very worried about the fuel prices as our livelihood depends on it.
Diesel prices are crippling so the cost of eg meat, grains etc will rise. The large supermarkets pay the producer very little.

We have had a problem getting supplies and had to wait more than a month before the tanker came so that had a detrimental effect on the farm and heating for the house. By the time the fuel had arrived, it had almost doubled in price.

Petrol is now £1.58 per liter in Orkney for example.

I am willing to protest but I think the government are going to implement some archaic law which will make protest difficult.

Chili is right - it is a finite resource - it is going to get scarcer and more expensive. Get used to it.

I agree, it is going to push us back into recession, we can afford rises but with both dh and I paying at least £10 a tank extra we will think twice before going out unnecessarily, plus delivery charges will inevitably rise.

I think we should march on Parliament to let them know. It is OK for rich boy Cameron who lives on the job and the others in the House of Expense but for those of us who will have to work for over the hour, just to buy a gallon of petrol and around that to park for an hour in London, we are finding it hard going. PS Basic bananas in Sainsburys have gone up 39%. Just one pay rise in 10 years. Welcome to the big society.

jodevizes I think marches and demonstrations just lead to public condemnation. Look at what happened with the recent student riots over tuition fees. A lot of bitterness and violence and the public soon start pointing the finger and tut-tutting don't they? I feel it needs to be more subtle than that.
What about a day when people don't fill up their cars? National No Petrol Day. That could help the environment and get the message across. People could car-share or fill up at another time. Garage owners would soon be putting pressure on the government to lower fuel duty wouldn't they? Or am I talking rubbish?

I worry about this hugely. In the last 18 months I've seen my monthly fuel bill go up by £45. I haven't had a pay rise for 3 years and one doesn't look likely this year either. The increase in fuel has had to come out of my monthly food bill, taking me down to £150 pcm to feed a family of 3 (including cleaning products, etc). Trouble is, increases in fuel prices mean food is going up as well...

The thing I really object to is that these sorts of policies are set in Whitehall, where so many MPs have no idea about the effect on people in rural communities. I would love to ditch my car and use public transport if it were available, but it simply isn't. Buses around here are so limited in terms of times and routes that it's simply not an option for me, especially since the nearest bus-stop to my CM is 2 miles away while the nearest bus-stop to my place of work is 6 miles.

We will never, ever solve this problem. There will never be enough public money to subsidise adequate public transport in rural areas and the numbers involved will never tempt the private sector either. The government should accept that cars are here to stay and instead concentrate on funding the quest for that elusive 'green' fuel that can replace dirty oil-based fuels. If the UK were to develop it, think of the money it could make the country!

Round here, it's £1.25 a litre. I remember the fuel protests when it got close to £1 and that was not all that long ago.

In some senses fuel should be expensive because it's a limited resource. But I live in the country. I don't have a great deal of choice, there are no buses or trains. I could walk the kids the ten mile round trip to school but they are 2 and 4, they probably wouldn't make it.

Let's be honest. Yes Petrol is not green. But "green" is just a convenient excuse for successive governments to tax things.

Most of the cost of petrol is the tax. The problem is though, if they cut the tax on petrol, which other tax should they increase to offset the lost revenue?

There are protests being organised, but the organisers are coming under pressure from the police and are having to cancel them due to threats.