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Please sign this petition - Fuel prices

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howanic said:
Radik said:
It is funny how people complaining about increases of fuel or food or energies. Where have been these petitions against house price increases which is more essential then fuel? Thanks to HPI we are in this blah...

lol So when they start building more cheap housing they can deliver the 24 tonnes of building material on bikes to save on fuel costs :lol:

If you would not have to pay over the odds for over priced house or rent and prices would be where they should be eg 2x less then you would not have any issue with some fuel price increase as your disposable income would be much higher :)

Unfortunately fuel prices will go only up as oil is not in endless supply and any petitions are pointless. Just let China and India fully develop and we would need 3x Planet Earth to feed our cars.
 
Fuel increase does not just mean transport price increases. It increases EVERYTHING for EVERYONE.

Sadly oil rules the world. Wars are fought over black gold not housing.
 
skeletonw00t said:
Increase the price of fuel... Why not increase the price of water too?
And also perhaps start charging for the privilage of breathing fresh air?
Like Ian who lives near me. The water rates have gone up. Apparently we now have to pay extra for some extra bit that has been moved from government to the water companies. Can't remember what the leaflet says.

Thank you to the poster above who says I can get 20% off. I shall investigate that :)

Te unemployed on benefits dont care because they pay for nothing anyway. The rich can afford it so they dont care... Yet again its middle england that will foot the bill.
I am unemployed AND on benefits (at the moment) and I do care. I don't pay for anything?............ Try 17 years solid tax and NI matey. Is this not what the dole is for? While I get back to work?

And before someone says get any job I am a trained accountant. When I lost ambition because of 2 redundancies I decided to give up and work in an egg factory. On the shop floor as an operative!!! I enjoyed it and stayed there for 5 years until we Brits were pushed out by the employers by any means possible in favour of the Eastern Europeans so they could lower the wage down to the minimum, remove the subsidised transport, have more reliability, less sick days et al. I ended up out because of the behaviour of other Brits!!! So I had to go back to working for twice as much in the offices ;)

This is happening all over Britain. When questioned the answer is that they aren't working for a lower wage because there is a minimum wage. Well they are because the employers have removed the cost of tranny vans picking up from the council estates and the wage was higher than the minimum wage. It isn't now (at least in the factories I know)

Just so the hippys can claim their saving the earth

You do realise that even if we reduce our carbon emissions by half - china will make up that difference in growth within a year?

Besides all this is utter futility anyway as global warming / climate change is yet to be proven anyway.

I am with you there. The idea (as I see it) isn't to get cars off the road because of climate change. More to do with there being too many cars on the road, too much congestion, too many fumes being breathed by my children. I am not at all going on about the climate change thingamy of which only 3% is attributable to man (if I remember rightly.)

I agree that benefits should be available to all those who need them. I just feel that in my position, I can and will do anything possible to stay off of them. I understand that everyones situation is different, but do you think that if you drove you would stand a better chance of getting a job? (sorry to be cheeky)

Should I have to drive to get a job? If so Why? And I guess yes if I drove I would be able to work at the factories that I used to work at before they removed the subsidised transport that was there until they didn't need to bus in the English Estate workers anymore!!! I could get a job in Nottingham or somewhere an hour (+ whatever rush hour adds.) My children are too important to me to be away for that amount of the day. I'll do any job within a radius of Lincoln. Furthest was 10 miles away so far on the bike. 35 mins there, 45 mins back (blooming great hill so quicker there than back)

Quick Answer. I am not going to take a lesson, nor 2 lessons....ever....I will not pay that kind of money ever again to own and run a car. And I shall be in work before the end of the year in whatever position I can attain be it working on the fields or returning to accountancy (which I detest) and still be happy with making do with whatever I have :)

The hardest thing is you have to get a permanent position. It took 6 weeks before I saw any money and it would take that every time a temp job finishes. Hand to mouth time there.

The house price statement above is pretty good however it isn't going to change. The 'buy to let' mercenaries may be taking a small hit now the Uni numbers are cut because that was part of their market which boomed in the last few years due to the 'degree in anything we can think of'. However the majority market is Economic migrant sector where all the terraced housing (i.e. first buyer homes) are bought up pretty quickly to rent out. The bigger buy to let portfolios (the pros) are picking up what the smaller portfolios (those who took mortgages to buy to let) are having to relinquish.

Your best bet is to do like I am doing. Get on the Council list, get a council house, live in it for 5 years, then you can get 35% discount to buy it (to a max of £24k) After 2 years you can sell it and move onward and upward taking that discount with you as clear profit. That would make my house with a market value of circa £50k into a £33k buy minus deposit

Timescale? Was on the list for 4 years (whilst in a nicely paid job.) Now lived here for 3.5 years. 1.5 years to go. then 2 more before moving away. Thats what I mean about sacrifice/prioritise/choice. 11 year plan will get me into a reasonably nice home. thats foresight :)

As for the mortgage. The government gives out this free money. Called tax credits or something like that which is all going straight into my deposit fund. Pretty hefty amounts too - £5k a year. Very generous the government. No idea why they think people need this money but it will come in very handy. Thinking about it if I wait an extra 5 years before buying I may be able to pay in cash. Will thev to do some forecasting on whether I think the housing market will rise again before 2018.

And before anyone says. No I am not cheating the system. The tax credits are being paid because as we (meaning as a family) started the year in employment then the tax credits carry on assuming we are in employment still. If not by April they will stop so I need to get to work before April or my deposit fund is going to stall :) I have to play by the book. My Dad was employed investigating and taking the cheats to court. Before he retired at 60 :)

Andy
 
Like Ian who lives near me. The water rates have gone up. Apparently we now have to pay extra for some extra bit that has been moved from government to the water companies. Can't remember what the leaflet says.

Thank you to the poster above who says I can get 20% off. I shall investigate that

is this a flame?? You know full well i was the one who wrote that statement Andy, you're not that thick surly! lol. Go ahead and claim you lower water rates. You can do more water changes then can't you, bath the kids, wash more clothes. Before you think the post was a dig, it wasn't. Why not claim for what you can...what's the point in working other than self pride. I was talking to an old boy at work the other week and we got onto old fashioned values and one of the main things he kept reiterating was how embarrassed there generation would be to come forth and say they were unemployed, let alone benefit claimers. This is how times have really changed for the modern man.

The government gives out this free money. Called tax credits or something like that which is all going straight into my deposit fund. Pretty hefty amounts too - £5k a year. Very generous the government. No idea why they think people need this money but it will come in very handy

^^this is another way of the government being able to pull back quite a substantial amount. Also another kick in the proverbials for a family who just earns a little to much (which is bellow the London average BTW!). You may/will find that the tax credits need paying back now, if there is a change in employment. At least the government has started to do something about this.

Another thing i'm not a massive fan of (even though i work in the NHS and work as a professional) is free healthcare. This is the biggest waste of tax payers money. It really is. If we didn't have an nhs we'd all be a lot better off. We should be doing what the french have done regarding this. They have a great system. They don't pay a NI, they pay a small amount in private insurance (and it is a small amount). Pharmacists have more power to give drugs over the counter, which frees up GPs to be doing home visits and keeps care in the community. Hospital A&E's change a round £50 on the door, this doesn't take into account bad road smashes and other life threatening ailments (they get charged afterwards). this is for people who just walk into the A&E, it cut useless hospital admission by 45%!! this saved France a lot of money. The problems will come if this happened in the UK, would be the PC do gooders claiming that's it's against human rights!!
 
ianho said:
is this a flame?? You know full well i was the one who wrote that statement Andy, you're not that thick surly! lol.
Nope I read the statement and didn't remember who wrote it. lol. I remembered it was you who wrote the rise in water rates. I remember reading the leaflet that came through the door the other day. Also they are putting water meters in but giving us the option of choosing rates or meter charges. Having been on a meter at the old house I think I know that I shall be staying with the rates

Go ahead and claim you lower water rates. You can do more water changes then can't you, bath the kids, wash more clothes. Before you think the post was a dig, it wasn't. Why not claim for what you can...what's the point in working other than self pride. I was talking to an old boy at work the other week and we got onto old fashioned values and one of the main things he kept reiterating was how embarrassed there generation would be to come forth and say they were unemployed, let alone benefit claimers. This is how times have really changed for the modern man.
Indeed. while my wife was working and me not (last 3 years apart from the last 3 months) people assumed I was on the dole. Everytime someone tried to dig at me I quite proudly told them I was not on the dole and in my whole life had only spent 13 weeks on the dole and 5 weeks on benefits despite 2 redundancies. The first time I should have been on the dole I didn't. I felt ashamed and missed out on 5 weeks of money before landing another job. I won't make that mistake again.

^^this is another way of the government being able to pull back quite a substantial amount. Also another kick in the proverbials for a family who just earns a little to much (which is bellow the London average BTW!). You may/will find that the tax credits need paying back now, if there is a change in employment. At least the government has started to do something about this.

Nope when you lose your job you remain on the tax credits if you have worked during the financial year. The JSA then counts as earnings and the tax credits actually go up. All above board Ian. Tax Credits were told straight away. With the statement I made I was just re-iterating that tax credits whilst useful to spend on silly things are not needed. All of mine go straight into savings. The £211 dole a fortnight + £140 a month child benefit is enough to eat and pay the bills without using the £420 a month tax credits. Remember those bills now don't include rent or council tax as that is covered with the housing benefit. Ian. You've seen my house and we're not slumming it to say the least.

Those who do need should look at their bills and work out why. Maybe do like I do and not have any chocolate, biscuits, crisps, cakes or other nasties on the shopping list. Kids will love you for it when they are grown up and ultra healthy.

Another thing i'm not a massive fan of (even though i work in the NHS and work as a professional) is free healthcare. This is the biggest waste of tax payers money. It really is. If we didn't have an nhs we'd all be a lot better off. We should be doing what the french have done regarding this. They have a great system. They don't pay a NI, they pay a small amount in private insurance (and it is a small amount). Pharmacists have more power to give drugs over the counter, which frees up GPs to be doing home visits and keeps care in the community. Hospital A&E's change a round £50 on the door, this doesn't take into account bad road smashes and other life threatening ailments (they get charged afterwards). this is for people who just walk into the A&E, it cut useless hospital admission by 45%!! this saved France a lot of money. The problems will come if this happened in the UK, would be the PC do gooders claiming that's it's against human rights!!

Lol. Ni covers a lot more than NHS Ian but I see your point. Wouldn't work in this country though. People wouldn't pay the small charge. It would result in much worse health and end up costing the taxpayer more when we have to treat them or have streets of sick and injured people.

Get rid of NI and the pension won't be described as not enough. It will be described as Non existent. Then we will have to pay more from our own pockets because it wasn't taken from those people when they worked or again they would join the sick and injured in the street.

Ni also covers some other little bits and pieces as well and remember the employee pays less than the empolyer does.

I do think though that something should be done about the time wasters. Something like the 'ambulance charge' for timewasters. Lucky to get an appointment same day at my GP for all the colds, coughs and itches being assessed. And I know of 2 migrants that came to work in the UK at the factory I was at to be exact and their intention was to earn loads of money to send back to Portugal because they had a child (separate cases so 2 children) that needed an operation. When they discovered it was free over here their children appeared within 3 months. 1 of them is now on the income support as a lone parent with 3 children in the schools. 1 of them has spent the last 2 years having the multiple operations to repair a cleft pallet. Cost of those operations? Probs £50k upward. I suspect a lot more. Cost to her? She worked for 6 months then has spent the last 5 years as a stay at home single parent on benefits, free operations, free school etc.

Now I don't begrudge europeans wanting to make a better life for themselves. I am after all married to one. I don't blame them as we would probs do the same. It is governments acceptance of it that is the problem. All parties are at fault and it needs to be addressed.

Yes we're all way off topic but I am just trying to say we are a nation of moaners. We moan about the petrol and if that gets sorted we moan about food prices and if that gets sorted we moan about......... Lets just look a the big picture, calm down, realise how well off we are in this country and stop moaning so much. There may be time to enjoy life a little then.
 
this is the electric generation i'm afraid, again, I once worked in the community health care setting, i worked alongside midwifes and assessed babies in there home environments. I won't go into that to much...but you really would be surprised on what 'poor' families had. I remember one house we went into, in a rough area of Lincoln. The house had no carpet, no wall paper, they cooked on a calor gas stove, the children had mattresses on the floor. Now, the front room/living room had a 42" Sony LCD TV, Sony Divx DVD player, Surround sound. To top it off there was an Xbox sat in the corner.

Now professionally we would class this family as underprivileged. People just seem to have their morals all wrong in this day and age


Andy, i didn't mention about Ni contributions, i know about what we pay into Ni. Believe me a large amount of Ni covers NHS contributions. After writing a dissertation on social policies, i know how the NHS works and were my money as a tax payer goes.
 
Indeed Ian. But also a large percentage goes to pension even if like me you have opted out of Serps2 in which case you still pay the same but that amount goes into your private pension instead of the 'national pot'

I should really apologise for the way I rant on this subject. Maybe like an ex smoker condoning smoking so vehemently because I got really caught up in the buy now pay later syndrome which is a disease, maybe even an addiction. Maybe thats why I warble on so much about it however I do not blame the banks. Even though they let me have the money that I couldn't pay for in the end it was I that signed the agreement.

So whlst I did eventually pay it all and clear the debts I can understand how everyone else is in such a position. I was just lucky in that I knew the bubble would burst eventually and stopped my spending a couple of years before it burst.

Maybe I gloat a little about that. Maybe 2 much. And I shouldn't feel so smug about it but I am just putting the point across that we ourselves make choices, we ourselves access what is needed and what is an added extra and its all about understanding where the dividing line between these 2 is. Well off topic but to me driving around even if it is to drive to work is in most cases a choice made because the job a person wants is not local. Not in all cases of course and whilst some jobs are indeed a case of you go to wherever the work is (i.e. trades etc) many are because the worker wants that better job somewhere else. They choose that option and they could weigh up whether that better job actually pays more than the not as good local job when they deduct their travelling expenses and account for how valuable time is. By that I mean I would rather spend that extra hour a day with my family than travelling.

Please don't be harsh on me. I am the world's worst at generalising and can go off on one forgetting to put disclaimers in r.e. that.

Andy
 
SuperColey1 said:
Please don't be harsh on me.
lol :lol:

Hope I wasn't too harsh. This is a good thread and I enjoyed reading everyones posts and trying to understand the different views on things.

Keep it coming Andy .... just don't put fuel prices up ;)
 
Lol. I've worn out my keyboard with the last 2 weeks of ranting bout the modern world. he, he.

Just to add. Moments after I posted the last post a brighthouse wagon rolled to deliver the daily deliveries of electrical goods to the residents who live here on dole street :) A dishwasher no less :D

More time on the Xbox for someone or maybe some time to spend decorating their unpainted hall/stairs. However their stairs would look funny with decorated walls yet no carpet on them. he, he. Priorities. lol.

I think I'll give up on the long ones now though. Make myself miserable watching what all these lucky people are getting.

Andy
 
Anyone fancy a horse and cart 3 day trip to TGM? :lol:
Sorry guys, i am a biker and although i would support lets go green campaign all the time, just not about this one.
Imagine electrical motorcycle :lol:
 
I'm riding my bike from Stoke to TGM in a week or two, just choosing the right day weather wise.
 
Thats it then, a sponsored bike ride to TMG! Ill get in touch with Brighthouse to see if theyll provide the ukaps t shirts
 
That's quite a ride there and back again! A novel way of limiting impulse purchases though :lol:
 
I'm only going because It's on the way to Porthmaddog which is my ultimate destination, going to see the big little trains down that way and try and have a bit of a holiday on the cheap. Buying things? Are you mad? I can't afford TGM prices, I've started thinking of it as what sea-life centres would be like if they were free and freshwater. ;)
 
I'd like to weigh in on the cycling issue, here:

skeletonw00t said:
Cyclists are a nightmare on roads & their attitude stinks. "i'm on a pushbike therefore i am morally better than you & i'll take up as much of the road as a car"...

It is perfectly legal, and in fact encouraged, by law, for a cyclist to take up as much of the road as he or she sees fit in order to remain safe. Regardless of the position of any existing cycle lanes, if present. I often cycle in a primary position, taking control of the lane, to avoid other hazards such as door zones or blindspots. If i'm too slow for you, going at 18 in a 20 zone, then tough luck, i'm afraid. My life is worth more than your desire to arrive 5 seconds earlier at the next red light.

nelson said:
..yeah lets get cars off the roads now that motorists have paid to have them built so buses have their bus lanes and lunatic cyclists have their cycle lanes.
maybe someone could explain to cyclists what a red traffic light means !..

First of all, motorists haven't solely paid for roads to be built, neither have they paid for their upkeep. Road Tax, which I assume you are referring to, was abolished many many years ago. Road maintenance and construction is payed for through general taxation, and so, the roads are to be used and shared by everyone.

What you pay now is called V.E.D, Vehicle Excise Duty, and is a tax on your motor's c02 use, not your road use.
check it out: http://ipayroadtax.com/

Now, when we are talking about RLJ's, I will make it clear that I don't do this, and that the majority of people I know who cycle don't either. It is not worth the risk. Then again, you don't hear of many, if any, fatal cycling accidents that were the cyclists fault in the first place. I would suggest it is not only cyclists who need something explaining.
 
Thanks for the excelent post, really liked it.

Will check the legality of using the road space, and if so it will make my journey to work much more comfortable and safer as I cycle sometimes.

Usually my issue isn't cars or taxis but the bloody buses in London. The people driving them are the large majority morons and with murderous tendencies. Not all of course, but a real large part of them should be stripped of their licenses.


.
 
Generally I find buses to be really considerate, (much more so than cabbies, at least) if you try not to surprise them. I see an awful lot of newbies go down the inside on left turns, trying to undertake, sneaking up to overtake late etc, which of course means death. Try not to be intimidated, ride predictably, and usually they do the same.

As far as legality is concerned, there is no question. Cycle lanes are a guide, and in a knee-jerk "segregate for safety" reaction, are often installed in the least appropriate places. If you ride regularly, it is almost asking to have an accident to use them exclusively.
If you feel it is unsafe for other traffic to pass you at a particular area, indicate, take the lane, and then let it go again when there is room for traffic to pass. Hugging the kerb or parked cars only encourages impatient vehicles to try and pass too close, and gives you no escape route in an emergency.

Once you get used to this way of thinking, and riding as if you're a vehicle (which of course. you are), you start to feel much safer on the roads, and it becomes way more enjoyable.

i type too much.
 
What a load of rubbish.
VED,and fuel VAT,all goes in the 'tax pot' and is then allocated to how much is spent on road building/maintenance.
Less than is paid in by motorists.
So yes motorists DO pay for the roads,NOT cyclists.
But hey,you keep dreaming ;) .
 
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