Fuel price protest

Manach

What are the opinions on the 24-hour go-slow by road hauliers on Friday. Are they right to protest the cost of petrol or just compounding the misery of the public?

Blitzkrieger

yes

And the amigious answer of the week award goes to.......


Yes they are right to protest. Fuel prices are ludicrously high. Between fuel tax, road tax, insurance tax and whatever else I pay in income tax I spend most of my income just getting to work! I can't imagine what it must be like for someone who's a driver for a living.

C B

This is all a bit inconsistent Blitz.
In one thread your calling for wholesale state intervention in social affairs and now your complaining that it all costs too much. Make up your mind.

UNIFLU

Apart from tha fact that there will be a great degree of disruption caused i totally support their demonstration. Probably 60% of the fuel price is Govt. taxes, cant they drop it a bit, even the fishermen are having a worse time as fish are depleating so they have to travel furhter to catch less with higher fuel costs. The sooner the price returns to an acceptable level the better. Couldnt the Govt. reduce taxation temporarily until the barrel price of crude oil returns to a stable level.

Hobbes

Buy a bicycle.

C B

If the fish stocks are depleting so much they should stop fishing them, not hunt further out.
But I agree that some way should be found to stabilise diesel prices at the pump, by allowing the tax to fluctuate against the price of crude. This would allow environmental and economic concerns to be met.

[This message has been edited by C B (edited 14-09-2000).]

Paladin

IMO its the beginning of the end.
Of fossil fuels I mean.

This is the first time that prices have gotten to this level without some form of violent conflict of mass ecenomic depression being the cause. Over winter in the northen hemisphere the price of oil will rise if anything. It will probably go down a small bit after winter (price per barrel I mean, not counting taxation) but the price will gradually keep rising after that.

Why?
Fossil fuels arent a renewable resource. There is a limited supply that will for all intents and purposed have run dry sometim in the middle of this century. We are using it at an ever increasing rate, and now the supply cant meet the demand. Another form of fuel must be found.
There are actually several possible alternatives.
Methanol, and ethanol are being investigated. Already fuel in brazil is 20% methanol.
There have been attempts at a syntetic oil.
There is a type of organic oil that can be created which has huge amounts of energy (not vegetable oil or rapeseed oil for those that heard that on the radio:P)
Huge amounts of energy in the future might be gotten from our most precious renewable recource:
Water
Common H2O
When broken up its hydrogen and oxygen, which is fuel for space shuttles because of the huge amounts of energy available from it. And we have oceans of the stuff. Problem is how do we release the energy effeciantly

Would be nice to be able to stick a garden hose into the fuel tank of the car

BTW what is the exact figure for fuel tax?

PhilipMarlowe

i think on diesel it's roughly 26% excise duty plus 21% vat...

PhilipMarlowe

It's a tough call.....

Ok, so you make fuel cheaper, you lower the sometimes ridiculous cost of insurance, you lower VRT making cars a more realistic price... people buy more cars and where do they drive them? Roads here are well crap...

Of course, that could all mean i could get an M5 for maybe 40k, insure it for £400 and fill her up for £30
...maybe its not such a bad idea after all...

Jak

No they are not correct.

There are means of addressing these issues - Responding to these sort of strikes with concessions is a path to chaos.

SantaHoe

I'd like for the world to return to stone-age times when cavemen would power their cars by sticking their feet through the floor and running along very quickly.

I wonder though, if the manufacturers of solar/electric powered cars are being bribed by major oil companies to keep clean cars off the market for a few more decades?

Bah who cares!

Blitzkrieger

Originally posted by C B:
This is all a bit inconsistent Blitz.
In one thread your calling for wholesale state intervention in social affairs and now your complaining that it all costs too much. Make up your mind.

I don't know what he's smoking but I want some

Hauliers and fishermen have been complaining for years that fuel costs are too high and it's gotten them nowhere. The French blockade a few ports and they get what they want. It's natural that the rest of Europe would follow suit. I think it was estimated that it would cost businesses 2.5 billion a day if they do demonstrate so the goverment will have no choice but to give in.

Anybody see (One too many and you might turn) Bertie Ahern on the news last night? Afterwards they announced there was no need to worry as the Whitegate oil refinery has 90 days strategic stock. That's a relief....................


What kind of fools do they take us for? They're not going to blockade the oil tankers with trucks ffs. It's getting it out of the refinery that's the problem. You could blocade that place with a mini! There's a million places to but blocades on those roads that would stop the trucks getting out. Politicians

You've got to love Tony Blair too. He gets royally butt ****ed on national tv, but because no1 actually says he's lost - he comes on the TV to say he's won! Cheeky *******!

Personally my drive to work was traffic free for once I hope they protest like this for ever

Lump

Well, in the Statoil and in Kilkenny Fuel Unleaded that is, is going up to 79Pence per Litre, and as Statoil is a multinational, there will be no fuel shortage in the Station I work in, A tanker is coming tommorrow to fill up the place


John

Stephen

It came today... with 25,000 litres of unleaded and 6,000 of diesel.

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- Munch
- Sh33r l33tn35$, i tell you
- Fortress.ie

Mills

phew, I can sleep easy in my bed tonight now. Cheers Munch.

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I am inflatible !

dogs

I think its absoloutley great, they turned
waterford into a car-park for a few hours.
I've never got around town so quickly, its
so much easier to filter through traffic
when it's stopped. Bikes rule, and as long
as they don't stop me getting petrol for my
bike, Truckers rule.

Shinji

The fuel protests over here were great, towards the end of last week there was a complete lack of cars on the road - which made the walk into work a lot more pleasant! Shame it's over really.

As to the actual problem of high fuel price - suffer it, peons. As someone else rightly pointed out, oil is not a renewable source of fuel, and won't be around forever; better that people get weaned off it now rather than hitting a major culture shock in 30 years time when it suddenly becomes incredibly rare.

One loses all sympathy for fuel protesters when you wander around a city like Dublin or London at rush hour, and see the huge numbers of people sitting in traffic, sucking down petrol and belching out noxious fumes - with only ONE person in a car that could sit 4 or 5 easily.

Of course, higher fuel prices are only the first step. Next step, the Singapore model - make a massive chunk of the city centre entirely pedestrians and bicycles only and subsidise the purchase of bicycles. Then, find a way to ban car journeys of under a mile and a half at peak hours... And so on.

The culture of the car is unhealthy in so many ways, expensive, bad for the environment, and is an evolutionary cul-de-sac for the transport system.

Ja,
Rob

Blitzkrieger

Originally posted by Shinji:
The culture of the car is unhealthy in so many ways, expensive, bad for the environment, and is an evolutionary cul-de-sac for the transport system.

I'd much rather be on a racist bus

Frankly it's ridiculous that we do still drive vehicles that polute but tho I plan to buy a fuel-cell car as soon as they come out or that electric-hybrid that Honda sell at a loss, I'm never giving up my car.

It might be an exhaustable fuel source but I think you're missing the point of the protest. The main element of the cost of fuel is fuel tax. OPEC are lowering the price per barrel but fuel prices continue to creep up. People who drive for a living just cannot afford the extorniate tax.

Blitzkrieger

on a related note......anyone planning on leaving the car at home for European car free day?

I'd love to take 3 times as long and pay four times as much to get to work. They should have car-free days every day.

I suppose if everyone else leaves their cars at home and there's no traffic it'd take 6 times as long to get to work

C B

Originally posted by Blitzkrieger:


It might be an exhaustable fuel source but I think you're missing the point of the protest. The main element of the cost of fuel is fuel tax. OPEC are lowering the price per barrel but fuel prices continue to creep up. People who drive for a living just cannot afford the extorniate tax.

Blitz,

OPEC's increased production has not lowered the price of crude oil, though it prbably stopped prices going even higher heading into the winter.

the point of the tax (beyond revenue raising) is twofold. Firstly as has been pointed out oil is a non-renewable resource therefore todays market price only reflects todays demand and supply and does not reflect the demand of future generations. If the demand of future generations were factored into the market price it would be much higher (due to greater demand and fixed supply). This market failure is partially (perhaps overly) corrected by tax. The second reason for the tax is that the consumption of oil is environmentally destructive. People do not factor this destruction into their individual purchases of petrol leading to excessive use and high pollution costs.

But as we all know the main reason is that its an easy way for the government to raise revenue, and this was the point of my earlier post. The government needs to finance its various activities (which you belive should be wide ranging) if fuel tax is cut then income tax will go up. Inthis scenario the resource management and environmental protection functions of our tax code would dissappear forcing the government to raise more money to finace environmental protection activities. fuel tax is the most efficient manner of doing this as it earns the government money rather than costing it.

Blitzkrieger

I think we all agree that there has to be tax - but I think we all agree that the tax is too high as wll. Me - I'd somehow put up with it knowing that I'd just be taxed some other way but I'm not a lorry driver, taxi driver, fisherman, etc.

Shinji

C B is right - the tax has to come from somewhere. I think levying taxes on a major health risk and cause of lung cancer isn't a bad idea... not cigarettes, cars, which also contribute to the ballooning obesity problem in Europe, and lead us down a dead-end due to being fuelled by a non-renewable source.

Blitz, I don't know how far you travel to get to work, so I can't comment on your individual situation. However, lets face it; the vast majority of people with cars use them for short trips which they should walk or cycle instead, travel with only one person in the car, and use them on routes which are well-serviced by public transport.

We're not quite at American levels of wastefulness yet, but by god we're getting there.

Ja,
Rob

Shinji

Of course, the public transport system is mainly in such a bad way because buses keep getting stuck in traffic

Blitzkrieger

I'm one of the "lucky'" ones in that I live 30 seconds from a bus stop. My main uses of the car are for work and college. To get to work by bus I would have to get up for the 7:15 bus and stand freezing my nads off while it doesn't show until 7:25. After a bone 40 minute ride to the city (20 mins by car) its time to get off the bus, usually just as it starts raining and walk 15 minutes to the next one. Then it's another 40 minute bone jarring ride by the most round-about way imagineable to work and another ten minute walk from the bus stop. Getting home would be worse. I'd have to wait for the 9:20 bus. Basically I'd spend 4 times as long just traveling, never mind waiting around for buses that might not show up and pay 4 times as much as I spend on petrol for it.

College is slightly better in that I only have to take one bus even though it still costs 4 times as much and takes 4 times as long. The 3 times I've relied on that though it didn't show up half the time and was late and over-crowded the other half.

Public transport in Ireland is well below standard. You might say that my problems are because I live outside the city but even if I didn't it would still take longer and cost more to get to work by bus. I'll keep my car thank you, but as I said above - I'll go for a zero-emissions vehicle asap.

Blitzkrieger

Actually with the route to work it's more that there isn't enough buses so the bus has to take a longer route and make more stops.

Shiminay

Well, when I first moved to Dublin, I was delighted to even have a public transport system that I could speak of. Now that I've moved out to Cabineely, There's one bus that can bring me to and from work, but there's only 1 each way every day (it takes a deviation off it's normal route to go the the Industrial Estate in Sandyford.). Anyway, I'm not impressed. I've had to get a bike and I've found it way quicker to cycle.

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All the best,

Dav
@B^)
My page of stuff

[This message has been edited by Kharn (edited 20-09-2000).]

C B

Originally posted by Shinji:
Of course, the public transport system is mainly in such a bad way because buses keep getting stuck in traffic

Or maybe traffic is so bad cause there are ****ing buses everywhere. In the end of the day Dublins road network can't cope with the demand its under and it can't really be expanded. This was evident during the hauliers protest and the bus strike imean traffic never moved so well. So some form of rail netwofk is the only solution and this needs to be paid for by tax. What fairer why to pay for transport improvements then by taxing those who travel alot. But some form of compensation should be paid to those who make a living in the transport industry.

Bard

Originally posted by Kharn:
There's one bus that can bring me to and from work, but there's only 1 each way every day

S'funny, but in my last job, I had a number of customers (uhhmm... 2 I think) in that very industrial estate, and as I wasn't driving, I used to get the train in from the office in Malahide and a bus from the city centre. Now, naturally I had to time it right as there weren't many of this particular route bus I had to get that actually serviced the estate itself, but there was certainly more than just the one.

Is it a different route then? Would going into town and getting a bus from there be any easier for ya, Dav?

/me looks up Dublin Bus website ... ahmm... the no. 5?

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Bard
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[This message has been edited by Bard (edited 20-09-2000).]

Bard

Posted by C B :
What fairer why to pay for transport improvements then by taxing those who travel alot (?)

Well there is the train of thought that suggests that cyclists should pay some form of road tax. It was debated a bit recently on the Irish newsgroups. What do yiz think?

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Bard
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-me-

Blitzkrieger

What - have a tax disc on a bike? I suppose they do use the road tho. Not only that but they tend to be forced to the side of it where the road is worst

C B

they don't really impose conjestion costs on the rest of us so not really.

Paladin

Originally posted by Bard:
Well there is the train of thought that suggests that cyclists should pay some form of road tax. It was debated a bit recently on the Irish newsgroups. What do yiz think?

I think thats stupid.

Well you did ask

Bard

Originally posted by Paladin:
I think thats stupid.

Well you did ask

Thats fine... I happen to agree- I was just trying to spark up a debate!

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Bard
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[This message has been edited by Bard (edited 21-09-2000).]

Shinji

I'd be more in favour of subsidising the cost of bicycles, tbh, and possibly providing some form of free secure parking for them in the city centre.

ja,
Rob

Shiminay

Originally posted by Bard:
S'funny, but in my last job, I had a number of customers (uhhmm... 2 I think) in that very industrial estate, and as I wasn't driving, I used to get the train in from the office in Malahide and a bus from the city centre. Now, naturally I had to time it right as there weren't many of this particular route bus I had to get that actually serviced the estate itself, but there was certainly more than just the one.

Is it a different route then? Would going into town and getting a bus from there be any easier for ya, Dav?

/me looks up Dublin Bus website ... ahmm... the no. 5?

I've gotta get the Number 75 at Foxrock Church (20 minute walk from my house) and then I trundle into the estate. The 75 deviates from it's notmal route twice in the morning and twice in the evening and heads up to the estate instead of moving off for Tallagh from Stillorgan.

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All the best,

Dav
@B^)
My page of stuff