andrewducker | Oh for fuck's sake

Oh for fuck's sake

There's a BBC News story here saying that the government shouldn't put up petrol taxes...because theey'll hit the poor harder than the rich.

OF COURSE THEY WILL!!!!!

All taxes, except for ones that are (in some way) means-tested, hit the poor harder, because the poor have less money.

If the tax didn't affect people by making it harder to drive everywhere all the damn time, it would be a tad pointless, especially when this is something the government has said it's supposed to encourage.

Oh, the stupidity.

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While I agree that it is problematic for self-employed people who have to drive a lot and companies where fuel bills will cut into profits.... I also feel that having some kind of "public transport system" might help people who feel their cars are essential for going places. Or even "walking". Yes, it's not for everyone, but if you're that poor, stop spending money on your car. Everyone I know who has a car spends quite a lot of money on it. Very few of them need it.

There is also the fact that if your vehicle really is a legitimate business vehicle (and your insurance includes business usage) then you can claim the VAT back on your fuel as a business expense, so that's 17.5% you can cut off the price instantly.

I didn't know that :-)

In my experience it is a dislike of a]public transport and b]carrying shopping which makes a car a "necessity" for many. Some people (due to circumstances/location/job) do in fact need one. Most of the time, it's just desirable to have one rather than necessary. Like most things.

But then, given the already high cost of cars themselves, tax, insurance premiums the risks of repair bills etc etc... what the heck is someone poor doing having a car anyway? Unless it's for a job, it's going to make you worse off, not better.

My arguement for taking the motorcycle to work is that the tax and insurance is dirty cheap, I don't contribute to congestion, emissions are negligable compared to other transportation and more importantly, the cost of taking public transport for just one day pretty much covers my petrol bill for the *entire week* :)

yeah, the council makes us submit vat recipts for fuel when we make mileage claims using our own cars. Thing is, we don't see any of that vat money back ...

I don't think you would do anyway - it's classed as a business expense and therefore something that the business claims back.

Getting the mileage claim is normal though and I would be surprised if they never gave you that :)

Alternatively, the rich have options (taxis, exhorbitant train fares) or can just afford to pay the higher fuel tax ... while the poor that *need* a car (the disabled, visiting nurses, people who have to transport elderly relatives or get several children to further away schools (as you don't always get your first choice and local schools don't always have enough places), and those disadvantaged by the poor public transit systems, don't have options but pay a much higher percentage of their income through higher fuel taxes.

And it's great if you can afford a nice new hybrid car with fantastic mileage, but if what you can afford to buy is an older banger with a big engine (because those are getting quite cheap to buy now) then you'll not only get hit by poor petrol mileage, but by the higher fuel taxes, the higher fuel prices, and from next year, the car tax will increase on those older cars as well (I'm in exactly that position myself). And of course those older cars are not as reliable so you're spending what little money you have trying to keep them on the road because it's so hard to get enough together to get something more modern and more efficient (the "cheap shoe trap")

Most people I know don't *need* television, beer, cigarettes etc. and the very poorest really can't afford even those ... but you have to make your choices about what is going to contribute to your quality of life. Losing easy mobility for many people, is taking away a lot of freedom, and hope.

I do have a car ... I don't drive it much (due to the costs, and because I have, at the moment, a job that is easy to commute into ... my previous job was a 45 mile drive or would have been over two hours commute into and out of central London to get to ... and as it was the only job offer I had at the time, my sensible choice was driving or spending nearly five hours a day commuting or remaining unemployed ... ) ... I didn't have a car from April last year to February this year ... and yes, it impacted *a lot* on my life. I didn't go to parties (no way of getting home afterwards), I missed conventions, I didn't visit my mother as often, and I had to spend more buying milk/bread etc. from the small local shops rather than buying stuff cheaper in the big supermarket. Walking is fine if you're not trying to carry six or eight bags of shopping more than two miles ... and yes, I accept there are minicabs for that sort of thing, and car hire for weekends where you need a car (though that too is problematic when the car hire places aren't an easy public transport journey, and for that matter, when they don't open after you have to leave for work, and are closed by the time you get back from work ... when are you supposed to hire the car for the weekend if they place is closed when you need the car?)

Edited 2008-05-26 22:49 (UTC)

You've expressed exactly my feelings here.

I used to share a flat with our own

andrewducker. It was at the top of a hill. In order to get shopping there, it was easiest to shop more often and carry less. Some people may well live places where there isn't great public transport or where you need a car to get anywhere. I've no disagreement with you there.

On the other hand, plenty don't. And I've found people who already have cars structure their lives so as to justify it. Why go to the shops twice a week if you can go once because you have a car? The car becomes necessary when changing other things would make it less necessary.

I agree train fares are exorbitant. Doing some quick calculations, the cost of fuel to get to and from where I work would be about a third of what train fares cost. Of course, I don't have to buy the train, insure it or pay any kind of tax on it. And if the train breaks down, I don't have to pay, or buy a more expensive ticket to replace my current one.

Talking about freedom and hope is fine, except maybe adding up the cost of a car (and presumably we're talking one "bought" on credit with all the interest that entails), the cost of insurance and fuel... and maybe if a car wasn't purchased then other things that give freedom and hope could be.

All that said, we live in a country where cars are encouraged. If car-owning wasn't the way adults are expected to be, then we wouldn't be encouraged to shop at out-of-town retail parks with minimal public transport to/from them.

I have friends who thought nothing of driving to the shops and back to do their shopping, and were confused when I suggested walking. We lived quite literally five minutes walk from the shop in question. Five minutes. Their car wasn't even that big - they could barely fit more shopping into it than two fit people (which they were) could carry. This is both the symptom and the disease.

I feel exactly the same way myself, but about the internet. It's a luxury, but it's one that I like having and want to keep having because I'll have to change things if I don't have it. I certainly don't need it.

I've never believed that -no one- needs a car. I just believe that there are many who simply think they need a car and just don't want to change things so put their own obstacles in the way.

On the other hand, plenty don't. And I've found people who already have cars structure their lives so as to justify it. Why go to the shops twice a week if you can go once because you have a car? The car becomes necessary when changing other things would make it less necessary.

We've recently gotten a car (through my partner's work, so it will probably vanish if he changes jobs) and I've been extremely conscientious about not making random trips to Tesco when the local village shop has much of what we need - admittedly, some days I can't get exotic things like 'yogurt'. Thankfully, the nearest Tesco is about 5 minutes from his parents' house, so combining errand with family visit is easy.

It is frighteningly easy to slip into a mindset of 'let's just jump in the car.'

I should note - I quite agree that rail travel is too expensive and there are areas where public transport isn't great.

I don't think it makes any sense trying to get people off the roads if you're not making the equivalent journeys by public transport easier. There's no point trying to stop people making short journeys in their cars if you're only upgrading long-distance train lines. And conversely there's no point trying to persuade people onto public transport if you're not trying to dissaude them from public transport.

Taxing cars and indeed fuel based on location and use would be logistically unfeasible, but by far the best option. I suppose the congestion taxes in cities are a roundabout attempt to do this but are a blunt instrument. You don't want to tax people who genuinely need their car, you just want to tax those who are wasting fuel driving around looking for a parking space and wondering who on earth slums it on the bus around town.

But sometimes, it is just about mindset. For example, to drive to the nearest shop from my house is literally four times as far as to walk (there's a pedestrian-only short cut), but people still drive there for milk. Public transport is irrelevant in some cases - if you put a free tram in, taking it is still stupid and lazy and slower for a non-disabled person not getting much shopping. People need to feel safe walking (from cars and the perceived risk of attack), and they need to feel it's the normal thing to do.

I should note - I quite agree that rail travel is too expensive and there are areas where public transport isn't great.

I don't think it makes any sense trying to get people off the roads if you're not making the equivalent journeys by public transport easier.

This is what concerns me regarding what's going on and I'm glad you've qualified what you meant. I lived in the green belt of Glasgow for years but there was simply no way of getting to the jobs in the nearby cities without either a couple of hours on a bus (and that's even assuming you worked in the centre of Glasgow) or being lucky enough to have a car. There was no train station and it's still the case there that the only way to get to a job (or hell, -anything- lots of people take for granted in life) was a shitty bus service or trying to run a car.

I know first hand the loss of opportunity that it can mean. For the record we didn't have a car and we weren't the only family who couldn't afford one. I really worry about what's happening there nowadays. It's going to hurt people who are trying to get on in life and take a lot of hope and opportunity away from people.

When Rob and Clare lived across the road from me, they would drive to Tescos rather than walk. You know how far that is. People who live close to tescos than me would get stuff delivered rather than go get it.

Where I work is literally minutes from two different train stations and is about thirty seconds from pretty much -all- the bus routes that go through this part of Edinburgh.

People who live in places that are on those same bus routes or rail lines still drive to work "because it's easier".

When I worked at ScottishPower in Camelon, only two of us on my team regularly got the train. Everyone else drove. Except, with only one exception on a team of thirteen, everyone lived either on a direct bus route or train line from the office. You could see the office from the station. Some of these people lived pretty much next to bus stops, but they wouldn't use them. They wouldn't get trains, or would get the train and run up and down trying not to pay because they objected and would rather drive.

All of this is the problem. The problem is that people believe cars should be used over and above everything else.

If you can't teach people that this is the problem then there is no fucking hope. If you drive from down in the borders to your work outside Edinburgh, or out from Stirling to Kippen where there's precisely two buses a day, at entirely useless times - that's fine. you can hardly do that differently.

People who drive from one end of town to the other because they're too lazy to walk when there are no obstacles in their way, or do everything incluidng buying a shit car and spending hundreds keeping it running and buying petrol daily because their car gulps it up when they could step out of their house, walk for 90 seconds and get a bus that drops them directly outside their work (again, not an exageration - I could point to the places on a map and name the person I used to work with)

At the Prudential there was free bus transport from around the central region. Completely free, got you to work for nine, picked you up from work at five. People who worked 9 to 5 and lived right by the bus pickup points would still often drive, because they had a car and because it was "easier".

This is the problem.

The problem is having out of town shopping centres and not bothering to put in things like pavements or regular bus routes. The problem is spending all your money on things that aren't public transport when you're a government that claims to be in favour of greener living.

Saying that there are people who need their cars is fine, I completely agree. But the problem is all the others. They don't. And if they can't understand that, there is no point to this.

It's like mobile phones, and the internet. Once I had each of those, I came to rely on them and felt that I needed them. I -could- get by without them but its easier to use them. If I had a car, I'd probably be the kind of person I'm talking about. The thing is though, right now I'm not, so I can see this.

Unfortunately, it's a lot like They Live right now and other people can't see this. Don't defend people who do need their cars. I'm not attacking them. It's everyone else.

A very complex tax on cars, based on where you are, access to relevant public transport and what you use your car for would be perfect, but unfortunately completely unworkable. That way you could tax cars that were obviously being used as luxury items but ones that were an essential could be taxed -less-. Pity it wouldn't work.

The problem is that people equate cars with freedom, even if that car is itself a massive debt because you bought it on credit or at best a massive cost. Car adverts equate car ownership with freedom, with peace, with fulfilment. Not with debt, with cost, with pollution.

to continue (stupid word limit)

This will not be the case in future. If people want to pretend this isn't going to happen, they can.

But right now, the best thing would be to try and educate people into considering whether they -actually- need a car, not whether they -want- a car. For people who do need a car, they can go on as they are. People who don't really need a car? Well heck, they can feel proud that they gave something up to do their part to save the world. It's slowly starting to happen that way with plastic carrier bags, after all. And taxing people off the roads is having an effect in some parts of Britain. The problem is that the investments in public transport are in totally the wrong place for the most part. Doing it in London where, as far as I'm aware from family and friends, people don't generally drive to the shops, or on intercity train lines going from London to Scotland rather than local services or rather better bus services pretty much everywhere - it's not hard to see where the problem is. The Stirling Alloa train line, and extended the Bathgate line- great! There being only one bus in the morning and one in the afternoon out to some of the villages here, so you have to own a car to drive a fairly small distance...not so great.

In the long run, I don't believe it truly matters. I think that oil, the environment and so forth have been pushed too far, or that things are continuing without change enough that massive changes will occurr and huge shifts will have to happen overnight regardless of whether people want them or not. In the short term, I think it's worth doing what we can, but in the long run, I don't think we necessarily have time any more.

Preparing for big serious changes before they happen is a pretty good plan right now though. Having something in place as regards power generation for being a small country without enough money to import it when a bidding war starts over short supplies, for example. That'd be a good thing to invest in as an example. Not just waiting and going on as we are because freedom is important. Freedom is important. So is the future. The government, and indeed most governments, as Andy has often said to me, is interested in giving people one of those while not doing much to safeguard the other.

Edited 2008-05-27 20:47 (UTC)

I agree entirely.

People are often surprised at how much I walk around London and even in Farnham. People are amazed I go regularly to one particular pub because it's an half hour walk away (and I walk fast. It's probably two and a half miles), but hell, I like the walk. And since last summer I've lost two stone, mostly because I've been walking much more. Sure, if I'm trying to move stuff it's a pain not having a car (or the ability to drive), but it's easy enough to get a friend to help or a taxi if I'm really desperate. If I want to go to London it's an hour on the train - and it would take longer and probably end up costing more to go by car (considering parking and so on). Public transport in the South East is amazingly good. People complain about it a lot, but really they often have no idea how good it is compared with everywhere else.

My parents, on the other hand, pretty much need to have a car. Public transport in rural Scotland is awful, my parents go long distances often and are getting too old to lug around heavy cases. But currently my situation (and the situation of most people in my area) is completely different. People don't need cars most of the time.

I remember chatting to some London goth types and talking about walking from Kings Cross up to Camden, then down and along to Islington, then to a different bit of Islington and they were all "....walk? But there are buses!"

I happily walk to the industrial estate retail park with a big supermarket that's a half hour walk away from here to shop, just because.

the southeast is about the worst place for train costs for actual distance covered, if I remember rightly? Here is second worst ;-)

I have walked quite a lot but not lost two stone :-( Sometimes I find a stone in my shoe :-(

Bah depressing. When I got the new job, I wanted to give up the car. Problem - it would take 4 hours to get there by pulic transport and I could only arrive after 3pm. Getting home is more problematic.

The initial thought was move somewhere where one of us can give up the car, so it may be somewhere in between. Still no transport. Also very little chance of us working anywhere closer to each other.

Stay a little bit too far away to cycle in and the road is too dangerous to attempt it.

Various methods have been tried to replace carbon based fuels, some are suitable for the cities, but none that I know off are any good for country life. Even looking at the so called green cars - the batteries are not any where close to environmentally friendly and the road I drive would rely heavily on the fuel.

Occasionally I have caught the train up north, but the times aren't suitable for my work patterns, still need someone with car to pick me up and I find myself trapped in Ayrshire. NOOOO!

Speaking of Ayrshire they now run a biobus - you get a discount for passing on your old cooking oil. Great idea with low useage, but think of the global problems if it takes off on a larger scale? Grain crops are already on the increase, but not necessarily as food. All these options usually have the nasty glossed over side - icky horrid solar panel chemicals that are impossible to dispose of and short lived in power cells, the problem with suicidal birds in wind farms (maybe that is just evolution). Fuel issues are always going to be one of compromise.

Roll on the nuclear transport?

Edited 2008-05-28 20:45 (UTC)

The problem is for people to realise which side of the compromise line they are on. Whether they are the ones who can remain and other people make compromises for, or if they are the ones who should be making a compromise themselves.

Unfortunately it's hard to get people to step back and think about whether they need are car in order to get into/out of their rural home/work that is impossible to get to otherwise... or whether they need it to get two minutes down the road to the shops.. and even then, some people are simply not going to understand what you're saying to them. Trying to convince people that what they have now is a luxury, even if they think it is a fundamental right and freedom is going to be something governments will be doing a lot of over the next few decades.

Hell, even the government is planning building projects that assumed continued growth, continued fuel usage. Look at the plans for heathrow, for building motorways - if less people fly and drive, those plans are going to look pretty stupid. But then, this is a government whose long term plans involve no contingencies for running out of oil, and an expected price of $70 a barrel.

It's funny - more than most things, all the discussion on the news about running out of oil, and food, and water - that's what makes me feel like I'm living in the future. Not being older, or the year being 2008, or computers. I grew up reading slews of dystopian SF of varying quality, so here we are :-D

Yup I agree with that. Cheshire is home of the great 4x4 driving nation where someone will pull out, drive 200 yards down the road and drop the kids off. I often find it amusing that despite the cry of diminishing accessible oil reserves and ever increasing fuel bills, people still opt for the large fuel guzzling 4x4s or american imports. I often chastise my parents for excessive used of vehicles. My mother in all honest should give the car up, but it would take more than a crowbar to part her.

I thought that there was a muffled cry within parliament to try and restore old community values to cut commuting and therefore cut the transport issues. I can't for the life of me see how this is achievable. Policies like this are the most difficult to reverse.

Luxury is strange concept. I appreciate I do live a life of luxury - I can afford to travel and visit friends, or eat whatever I choose when I choose without thinking about it. I am am not rich by local standards, but still comfortable. I will usually be the first to admit that it is something I take for granted. I suppose to much of the world the average working class brit is often equivalent to how we perceive the sheiks. Money - or what it has become today - I find a harder concept to come to terms with.

Dsytopian futures and promises of tomorrow. Technology begats technology. There have been huge developments within the last decade, it is difficult to pin point great break throughs after the silicon chip. It is strange to look around and see inventions documented in SF. I expect I will see many more in the future. Just think what it must be like to be Patrick Moore!

Couldn't agree more. There are people at my work that will drive to Morrisons even though, when you take into account lunchtime traffic and finding a space, walking is considerably faster.

I should point out that if the petrol tax increases the cost of petrol to the extent that some people can no longer function (driving kids to school, driving for work etc) then it is self defeating to tax them more. Mostly however, I take your point.

There was an interesting survey which someone with strong search-fu can probably find about just how much petrol has to cost in order to get people to stop driving. The answer was "an awful lot"

Well it would be interesting to see if said survey took into account the increase in mortgage rates and lessening of disposable income when making that conclusion, especially for those that have to travel significant distances to work and back each day.

7 years ago I had to travel 20 miles to and from work. 200 miles a week meant £1000 in fuel costs a year. Given fuel prices have doubled since then, and people have to travel greater distances, I would suggest that this token survey is probably not taking into account the concept of people living beyond their means, getting into huge debt or bankrupcy.

I'm not sure what your argument is here. Fixed amounts of tax applied to everyone are regressive. The problem is not that it makes it harder to drive (assuming that's your goal) but that it makes it relatively easier for rich people to drive. This is usually seen as unfair.

I'm not sure this sort of tax should be imposed in isolation. Without government efforts to provide clean, reliable and safe public transport, it just looks like bloody-minded environmentalism.

Of course it's a regressive tax - any tax on products is. I can't see any way of taxing petrol that isn't - any more than I can see a way of taxing cigarettes that isn't. But that doesn't stop me being heavily in favour of it.

I'm also largely in favour of bloody-minded environmentalism. But in this case I feel largely justified - Graph 4.1d here shows that spending on public transport has gone up by over 20% since 2001, and while I can't find any figures at the moment, I'm sure I've read that investment in both buses and trains is up quite a lot over the last 10 years.

It depends what kind of investment. While I was at university and still going home every holiday, there were huge amounts being put into the rail in the southeast.

Most of it appeared to be going on simply replacing old trains with new expensive ones that had the same capacity and not actually changing anything else. That might make it cleaner and nicer and safer (all good things, true) but didn't actually do anything to allow more people to travel.

Does that spending on public transport increase include fuel costs? That's gone up a bit since 2001, remember. :-p

What it is doing is hitting those of us who live outside the major cities. In cities, public transport is generally a viable alternative to driving. Around here, for example, we do have public transport, but it amounts to a total of 4 buses per day, the last of which is at 4.30pm. Hence why people have no real alternative to using a car.

It will, of course, cause people to want to find places to live closer to their jobs (insofar as it is possible), demand better public transport from their local council, etc. Living far from your employment will be more of a luxury.

But those are all necessary changes if we're going to deal with global warming and the decline in oil.

But, of course, encouraging people to live close to their work (and/ or work from home where that's possible) is a legitimate aim. We have a commuter culture, where it's routine to expect to move out of the city (and where building patterns in cities reflect, exploit and exacerbate that expectation) and yet still work in it. Why? Cities should be decent and normal places for people of all ages and all types of household to live.

Yes, people will still live outside cities and have the need to travel, but "hitting commuters hard", which is a common complaint, is something I don't really see a problem with.

Some people simply cannot afford to live in cities.

Like many people, i'd like to own my own home one day but the way house prices are in Edinburgh, that looks less and less possible with each month that goes by.

Consider the fact that I could buy a house (not a flat, a house) in a commuter town for a good chunk less money than a small fat in Edinburgh, it makes financial sense to move there and commute to work rather than buy in the city.

The main attractions of the city are the social and cultural attractions that simply cannot be matched by commuter towns and if I value those things (which I do) then I have little choice but to live in a city and commute.

Seems like it's somewhat hard to win either way.

You're making my point, though! "Can't afford" doesn't happen in a vacuum.

It is, indeed, possible, that you can't have absolutely everything your way in the real world. You may not be able to have a house _and_ live close to your work - but that's just life.

I expect the rises in petrol prices to swing things somewhat away from commuting.

I would -hope-, rather than expect, massive investment in shared commuting transport rather than just building more roads for the drivers. Either that or just build houses and move all those people with useful skills and jobs currently into the cities. There's no real point suggesting people live close to their work if there is nowhere -for- them to live. I know rather more people who commute INTO Edinburgh than commute OUT from Edinburgh. That should suggest a fairly clear problem with a swing away from commuting.

Given the lack of any desire/space to build houses in cities seemingly, more commuter specific and relevant bus and train services would be a wise move. Right now, the rush hour trains to Edinburgh from Stirling are full each day. What does this tell Scotrail and the government about demand? People are put off coming by train -because- they are full, people I work with get annoyed by the full buses because people are travelling at the same times, on the same routes, day in and day out and these are all predictable events. Right now there is a tacit assumption in transport policy at a local and national level that the car is a sensible alternative for people. You can do X and leave Y as it is because people can drive and oh hey, hopefully they'll car share. Stop that. Do not see cars as an alternative. Ensure that, excluding car travel, you can get people where they need to be. If the links are there, people will use them. Rush hour buses and trains are not travelling half empty.

If you want people to stop driving and be happy about it, you need a good alternative, not a make-do alternative. The government coming out and suggesting that people work from home, but not giving businesses any incentive to do it - you can't just go to your boss and say "I'll work from home, to save the earth" unless you're at a certain level or in certain roles. Force is required for all these things. Force, however, will not be applied, because people don't like it and complain. And so things get put off until it is too late.

Thinking about it, maybe that is the best policy. To make such sweeping changes beforehand is, realistically, unlikely. It'll take an emergency for that amount of money, of a shift in thinking, of bloody-minded force to be wielded.

Telling people "we're going to run out of oil, but we're not quite sure when, and some people say we're not running out but I want you not to trust them, but to trust me. Anyway, you need to make these really big changes that affect things you care about, and to think of things rather differently. By the way, here's an Al Gore film" is a tougher sell than "yesterday we had oil, now we don't. Your job in Edinburgh? You've traded it - now you work here in Glasgow where you live, and Bob from Edinburgh who used to work here, he has your old job. Also, might want to go queue for food. Before it gets dark, FYI"

Edited 2008-05-28 21:45 (UTC)

And if I was in charge of it all, all these stupid financial offices in edinburgh would be over in Fife, where the people who work in them live...

I need my car to get to work, and have decided that I need to either get a new job closer to home, or move closer to work. (But North Lanarkshire is not exactly attractive)

However, if I want to get into Falkirk, I can pay £1.80 each way for a ticket on First bus(*spit*), or, I can take the car and burn probably a couple of quids worth of fuel...

If you are in Edinburgh, its fine, because you have a good proper integrated bus network. If you are out in the sticks, things are more complex.

Moreover, since there has been changes in the kinds of work people do, they have to travel further to work, or face moving house every few years in order to get closer to their new work place. I can't recall the statistics, is it changing job every 5 years? No idea. But if you change job every now and then, moving house is a lot of hassle. Far easier to commute that extra 7 miles a day.

But yes, if you live on a transport route, you don't really have a leg to stand on.

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