Your Fuel Price Hikes Ain't So Clever Brown

by Craig Chapman - 09:23 on 27 May 2008

More fuel prices hikes and each time, the government make more cash out of us – to waste as they do on administering more tax hoovering initiatives. Its one great circle of incompetence and robbery.  62% of £1.25 = £0.78 tax per litre of diesel, this is strangling our nation Mr Brown !!

I drive a company car, it’s a Citroen Picasso 1.6 diesel and I am paid 11p per mile by my employer, so I have to be very careful that I’m not driving around the UK as a Sales Engineer, part-financing those journeys myself, therefore I have taken a few steps that are just about working - for now. I’ve never been an 80mph rep driver, but even I have had to take drastic action. 

i) Get up earlier and drive at no more 62mph to my first appointment. I find that 62mph ensures that I do not have to accelerate to pass trucks, a practice which could easily wreck any economic programme I try to set myself. 

ii) I keep the MPG reading constant on the dashboard, which shows that accelerating downhill and coasting uphill is by far the most fuel conserving way to drive. If the police ever need to stop me and ask in that condescending voice “do you know how fast you were driving Sir,” my response would be “64mpg Constable.” I really cannot afford to break their laws. 

iii) I have take out the 3 back seats for work mileage and only replace them if I need to carry more than 1 passenger. Samples are kept to a minimum and the only plural in the car is CDs !! (Yes I know the CD player saps the power, but something has to calm me down as driving past garage after garage displaying £1.27 per litre makes my blood boil). 

iv) The fuel tank holds approx £60.00 of fuel at the present local price of £1.25 per litre. I have not bought more than £27.00 of fuel in one go, in the last 2 months as it does not make sense to carry around such a huge weight. 

v) Whilst I’m now making so many more refuelling visits, I’m also using those opportunities to check my tyre pressures. 

In the last 2 months, I have increased my average fuel economy from a typical 47mpg to 60.1mpg. That 13mpg improvement equates to 2.88 more miles per litre, which for a typical £60.00 (47 litre) fuel tank full, suggests I am achieving 134 more miles per full load of fuel – or 67 more miles per half tank !! 

That means that rather than making more cash out of my driving habits Mr Brown, you have driven me to give you less and that makes me feel VERY GOOD !!! 

It is also typical of our government to confuse us with fuel sold in litres, used in cars that register miles per gallon – perhaps someone should take them to court for cross measurement violations ?

If, by some amazing stretch of the imagination, this has all been a responsible and sensible drive by our government to conserve wanton fuel wastage and be green minded, then I would be the first to congratulate them, however their track record on such matters does not warm me towards such a conclusion.

A fellow Popular Alliance member has recently read a book called "Fuel Wars" which suggests that the arab nations have so little crude oil left in their wells that they are having to float it to a reachable level with sea water. If that is the truth, then I guess Mr Brown is already planning a new carrot tax for when we have to travel to work on donkeys.

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