I’m Constantly Amazed . . .
Last week Andy Cline wrote about the perennial issue of fuel prices - in the States these are looking like heading below $3.25/gal again, thanks perhaps to the release of 30,000,000 barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. His comment that this is another one-step-back in the inexorable two-steps-forward for fuel prices is absolutely spot on.
Every time we breach a threshold, a return to just below it seems like a blessed relief. Remember when 90p/l seemed bad? How about when it was £1.00/l? But we got used to that . . . just in time for £1.20/l to seem really eye-watering. But actually, it wasn’t too tough . . . until we breached £1.40/l.
Well apparently, our major supermarkets are embarking on a price war at the pumps. This’ll make no difference to us though, and will at best be another temporary respite. Peak oil is coming (or it’s already arrived), and really, the only way is up.
So why am I constantly surprised?
Well, I do own a car, but the more I ride, the longer the gaps between filling it up - currently it’s every 4-5 weeks. So every time I go to the petrol station, it’s like visiting for the first time.
I stare goggle-eyed at the cost as I fill the tank. Did I really used to just accept this madness? How on earth do people cope (I work with people who have to fill up every 2-3 days, and they live about the same distance from work as I do), and not think about changing the degree to which they think they have to drive?
I find it strange as well, not just that people don’t think about not driving, but that they don’t question why the prices may be going up?
It gets me into trouble at times, like when someone at work was going on at length about fuel prices and I had to ask what they were: there’s no petrol station in our village so it’s not like I see the prices every day.
But to him, as with many others, it was because of the ‘huge’ amount of tax the Government ‘demands’. As if they’re sticking it in pillowcase under the bed and giving the poor motorist nothing in return. The classic comment is “It’s much cheaper in Switzerland” (we’re fairly close to the border) as if this proves that they should get a better deal at the pump.
The idea that people driving cars should bear the full social costs of what they’re doing is equally laughed at…
Just had my car MOTed, and I’ve done about 3000 miles in the last year, so about 10 visits to petrol stations over the last year, and those mostly in clumps as most of the mileage in 4 long trips. I’m always amazed at how much higher the cost is on each visit… However I really wish most of the up front costs of motoring (insurance, vehicle license duty, MOT etc.) were included in fuel prices, so drivers wouldn’t be in the frame of mind that they have invested so much money in owning a car that they better make use of it for even the shortest journey… Wouldn’t it be nice (for cyclists AND drivers) if people only drove when they needed to, so the road was not clogged up with (increasingly) large cars, with (increasingly) fewer occupants, making ever shorter journeys?
How high does it need to get… before change happens. That’s my question.