Petrol
and oil supplies look like they will inevitably run out
at some point in the future, so we may as well get used
to the high prices and look more towards trying to switch
to alternative lower-consuming vehicles. This is already
happening in the United Kingdom with more and more people
switching to Diesel cars, and the overall fuel efficiency
of cars is increasing. In the USA where fuel is far cheaper,
it is still however not uncommon to find cars that have
a fuel efficiency of 15-20MPG.
Petrol
cost has a big knock on effect on overall pricing, from
food to holidays, so is a very important issue. In particular
the price of diesel affects the cost of the majority of
our goods in the UK as we tend to transport most things
by lorry. Until there is a better train service for goods
then increasing diesel prices are going to push up inflation
and therefore affect everyone living in the UK.
Lots
of people in towns make unnecessary short journeys by
car and could drive less, but in rural locations you often
can't do anything without a car, from visiting a doctor
to finding a job It's unfortunate that prices are therefore
often higher in the countryside than in cities where the
choice of petrol stations is far less. Motorway prices
are also extremely high which means that some people may
make detours to fill up, thus putting more CO2 into the
atmosphere. Forcing people to detour to find more economic
fuel doesn't benefit the driver, the environment, or traffic
levels.
Tax
is a big part of the UK fuel costs, other countries have
very different systems to ours. Some even provide subsidies.
We should be ensuring that fuel tax doesn't make us uncompetitive
globally. It seems rather inefficient to have two tax
systems on cars - the fuel duty and also the car tax disc.
Both are billed as being environmentally friendly by penalising
cars that are inefficient, however why have the administration
costs for two systems? Scrapping the car tax system and
instead increasing fuel duty by a small amount would result
in similar tax revenue for the government, but would reduce
the amount that is wasted on overheads and may then better
target inefficient cars and drivers. Payment of fuel duty
is also much harder to avoid than paying for your tax
disc, so it would reduce the amount of tax fraud and mean
that the UK's honest citizens are not subsidising the
small percentage of car tax dodgers that are out there.
In
future perhaps the UK will see more usage-based taxes
taking advantage of new technologies, such as number plate
recognition for congestion charging or using GPS/tracking
systems. Some insurance companies are already using GPS
tracking to adjust premiums depending on how and where
you drive. This has the potential to allow for fairer
taxes, penalising those that make short journeys on congested
routes, whilst allowing those who live in the countryside
or in areas with poor public transport, lower fuel tax
to get to work.
See http://www.whatgas.com for more information
