Safe Speed Forums

On the way home I drove past a Tesco that has lopped 5p off a litre of fuel in the last week.

I've been up and down the A31/M27 corridor six times in the last four working days , and prices are falling by the day.

Apart from briefly mentioning that Asda have cut 2p off a litre about a week ago, the BBC (who I freely admit are my only source of news) haven't mentioned it.

So the 3p cut four days after the 2p cut at Tesco set me thinking: surely the BBC news website will have something to say about it. After six or seven searches using the words 'fuel, petrol, diesel, fall, cut, 2008' in various combinations, all I got was endless stories about the effect of fuel price rises.

So one of the issues that most affects 'hard-working families' is not worth reporting?

I'd hate to accuse the Beeb of bias, so to be sure I tried another issue where the BBC seem to be uneasy about reporting. Not downplaying today's horrific bomb in Iraq, the country is far safer today than a year ago (as a reporter on PM grudgingly admitted), so I tried putting 'Iraq safer, Iraq death toll falls, troop surge works', etc. into the search box. You guessed it: nada, nothing, rien. Just old stories about how bad things were.

Perhaps I just want to read the wrong stories.

Noticed the fuel prices around here have dropped a penny in the last day or so at some stations but otherwise have been the same for weeks.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7525988.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7520323.stm

It's typically fallen by about 4p/litre around here.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Another great one this am. Report (Today programme) on BP half-year profits (quite big), set in the context of 'rising oil prices'. Business reporter said that anger among motorists at the high price of fuel when BP are making this much money was misdirected, as a lot of the pump price was tax. The government could cut this, if they chose to "subsidise" motorists.

Subsidise? So tax cut is now a subsidy?

Our local BBC station, Radio Cumbria has been on the ball, reporting a price war between supermarkets, "who have slashed up to 4p a litre off the pump price."

This morning they were "congratulating" BP for still managing to make a huge profit despite the present economic situation!
The presenters tone said it all!

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

The logic of a "windfall tax" on energy companies defeats me.

Commentators seem to think that if the massive profits made by, for example, the oil companies are due to global market forces then the companies should be taxed more. How this reduces consumer prices is unclear, however.

Would the proponents of these retrospective taxes suggest that if, due to global market forces, the companies made a big loss then the government should compensate them and their shareholders?

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

Northern Rock?

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Regulation without education merely creates more criminals.

I agree. Don't they currently pay tax, or is it just an extra tax should be levied for being too damn successful?

Robin - Brilliant

Anyway, this article - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7525988.stm - suggests that the price per barrel has fallen by more than $20. That's a 16% reduction... yet all we've seen is a 5p a litre cut in SOME places. You can be sure that if the price per barrell had rocketed $20 this week we'd be seeing a fair bit more than 5p a litre put onto the price over the course of the week.

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As an aside... they have one thing right, these high prices are certainly making me be more economical with everything - which I believe is a good thing. We are generally very wasteful and shouldn't be, I've always tried to be frugal with electricity + gas and recycle as much as poss however the price rises have made me realise I could have gone even further. I'm currently averaging 40mpg per journey in my car now whereas before it was 30-33. Having said that, with the gas/electric prices no matter how conservative I get my bills are still going up.

Agreed. Makes me laugh when the politicians start muttering about new taxes for oil companies - basically they've realised that the Oil companies make lots of money and so can be taxed more so fund government inefficiency.

Someone above said about how is a tax cut a subsidy? Forget that for a minute - did you hear all the MP's shouting about how Brown could 'fund' his 2p rate delay?! Errr - given that he didn't have the extra money before and hasn't even got it yet, he doesn't need to bloody fund it - perhaps if Governments financial planning was done so that they only spent what they already have they wouldn't all get so uptight about delaying a proposed increase.

I find it bizarre. I suppose it's how some (reckless) businesses work - except in business not every single member of public who gets fucked if they cock it up.

"we've currently got £200mil of public money, but we should have £220mil at year end thanks to our greedy tax grabbing so we'll plan to spend £300mil and just borrow £80mil too" - "oh bugger, people can't afford the extra £20mil at the moment... we'll delay it! But how will we fund our spending? Shit... perhaps shouldn't have planned to spend before we had" Bugger.

They also miss the point that BP has a turnover something in excess of £150 billion. Of course they'll make profit in the billions, anything else would amount to an unsound company. But hey, whats common sense got to offer when the politics of envy look so inviting? I'd much rather we -you and me- pay a windfall tax for BP in addition to every other f**king tax every time we fill up.

People are so thick.

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Fear is a weapon of mass distraction

This analogy is a bit awry.

The Government are floating a windfall tax on oil companies. This is a non-refundable surcharge on the shareholder owners of the companies. The Northern Rock support is a repayable loan (at a commercial interest rate) to prevent the depositors in the NR losing their money. The depositors in the NR are the equivalent of customers of say, BP. The NR shareholders will almost cetainly lose most of their money due to the inept management who have lost their jobs.

If the Government wanted to do something equivalent for BP customers, they would leave the money in BP and "encourage" them to reduce petrol prices. Or, of course, reduce the tax on fuel. Ah, perhaps this suggestion is just to put pressure on the oil giants...

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

Diesel, Bedford = 132.9

Diesel, Fakenham = 127.9

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

So same Tesco have now dropped ANOTHER 2p/l, to 113.9/125.9. That's 7p/l or 6% in a fortnight!

Envious. Round here still 117.9 everywhere. Does anyone here think it'll ever go back below £1p/l though? And if it does you can imagine the cries of "it's 20% cheaper to drive now than it was in March 2008"!! "Motorists have never had it so good"

Yes, I'm not sure if environmentalists saying motoring is cheap "in real terms", or environmentalists crowing that we "deserve" to pay through the nose for fuel is more annoying.

Probably the latter.

What annoys me is the way they say "Good news for motorists, fuel has dropped by 5p/litre!". Wow, a whole 5p, when it is still way too high! And also what annoys me is when people blame the fuel companies for the rise in prices instead of the government taxation of fuel. They say "Oh, the greedy oil companies" Should be somewhat more like "Oh, the greedy govenrment"!

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Currently undergoing training with the I.A.M.

Flynn, Someone has to buy the bombs and the rockets for American wars......P.S. We haven't enough for drugs for our sick though!