h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

99.9p per litre up the road.
Didcot's run dry.

My quiet country railway station was like a scene from an evacuation drama this morning: are we sure this isn't some put-up job by British Rail? the guards were grinning from ear to ear and they gave up collecting fares two stations from the end of the line: either there wasn't enough room to move down the train, or they'd get their quota: lucky them...

It is good to see, rare that British direct action is allowed to go on, and actually achieve something, shame that the South East is the least effected. As that is always the Governments baby....
BCNU - Crescent

Oddly enough, the Tooting-Wandsworth traffic has been heavier than usual the last couple of mornings - maybe it's people being delayed on their way to work by attempts to buy petrol?

Does anyone else think that some of the complaints of UK transport companies are a bit rich? After all, heavy vehicles cause a large fraction of the damage to road surfaces, and require bridges to be built much stronger than would otherwise be the case.
It seems to me that their comparisons with continental fuel prices are pretty bogus, since a haulier from France is hardly going to pop over the channel to move a load from Bristol to Birmingham. Surely they're in competition with UK railways, rather than foreigners?

Probably I'm being selfish, but it seems to me the tax on petrol is out of all proportions.

The amount they take in fuel duty is over double the total that everyone else combined takes.

Then they get their VAT on top of that.

Outrageous. They'd never get away with it back in the US.

I would agree with Kaeori.
BCNU - Crescent

To a certain extent, British truck drivers are in competition with continental drivers. The same lorry driver reckons to go from,say, Scotland to Turkey on a regular basis. While you couldn't get all the way from the continent, you could manage a fair distance on a full tank.
A man on the World Service has just said that nearly the whole of Wales is out of fuel. What are you doing? Storing it in the bath?

We should all support the Hauliers (however inconvenient), because if their protest is successful it will benefit us all. Furthermore, it is extremely healthy for our arrogant, dictatorial govenment to realise they cannot get away with eveything in the face of massive public opposition.

How exactly will reducing the amount available for the chancellor to pay teachers, build hospitals and maintain roads help us all?

We have to face the fact that we can no longer ignore the true cost of petrol - the huge production costs, the OPEC cartel, the transport costs and the fact that there is a limited amount of the raw material in the first place.

As for the farmers being involved in the protest - what cheek! Their petrol is _not_ taxed the same which is why it is coloured to prevent farmers selling it on...but it doesn't stop them putting it in their own cars.

Don't know about anywhere else in the SE, but the one garage in London I walk past (Shell garage by Old St roundabout) was down to just 4* this morning and there were queues last night when I passed going home from work.

I'm with you, Duncan, this whole protest is ridiculous. There IS a case for reform of duty on fuel, but not as a knee-jerk reaction to a single issue pressure group. Anyone interested in seeing some coherent arguments on transport taxation should take a look at the Environmental Transport Association's web site, http://www.eta.co.uk/ . Farmers and road hauliers may not like what they see, though.

The UK govt. is going to HAVE to do SOMETHING!!
A report on the radio (North West England) says that fresh produce is starting to rot in storage depots, various public transport companies cannot get the busses out, and courier services are only handling priority orders. Our head office (my work) cannot send out any engineers - it looks like I am not the only one to be made redundant!!! (If the blockade goes on much longer)

HELP!!!!!

'G'

If a vehicle is driving along a given route between a series of international destinations, it can choose to fill up with fuel wherever it wishes, irrespective of where it may be based.
It's only unfair if vehicles from different countries are charged different amounts for the same fuel in any particular country they may pass through. (or if the cost of *registering* a given vehicle is different in the respective home countries of the operating companies.)

If a French trucker were driving over to the UK to make a delivery, and then shuttling around the South-East doing a few small jobs before making a pickup and heading home, *still on his original tank of French fuel*, those little jobs *might* be more profitable in comparison with a UK trucker who *hadn't* been to France, but that isn't comparing vehicles with the same movement histories.

And the small independent hauliers who are blockading the refineries are not bringing home the bacon and will be out of jobs soon enough if they carry on like they are.

I hope they actually achieve something. I hope they make the govt kow-tow to them, it would be about time. This govt has a series attitude that it knows best and it will shove it down our throats, no matter what. I am glad it is happening. And I laughed at all the eejits stuck in the traffic, on the way to work. Ha ha ha ha ha. It really made my day
BCNU - Crescent

A fair number of the 'small independants' are one-man-bands, and don't give a damn!!!!

'G'

The French started it, now all the shameless people are jumping on the bandwagon (which won't get very far without fuel).

So, what am I bid then for my last gallon of unleaded?

They will give a damn when they're not working and out of business

They are not working, they are actually fighting for something they believe in, rare to see in Britain these days, maybe cause of the naysayers. Now where could I find one of them?
BCNU - Crescent

No doubt good old Hague the bandwagon-jumper will making some populist pronouncement soon, if he hasn't already, even if the ratcheting up of fuel prices was started long before the current government took over.

At least with a decent fuel tax, it claws some money back from the undertaxed and overpaid who drive around in unnecessarily overpowered cars or 4x4s. People who commute to work in London as the sole passenger in a 15mpg 3 or 4 litre V8 and then whine about the price of petrol evidently don't have a massive sense of perspective.