Discussion
djglover said:
Not all adults in a household work though, so whilst the average salary is about 26K, the average household income is probably 31/32K I think.
But yes, many in fuel poverty I guess if you change the definition to include car fuel.
The average take home per household is 40kBut yes, many in fuel poverty I guess if you change the definition to include car fuel.
What pis**s me off with all this is I am sick of the Government stealing from me week in week out because I choose to work, smoke, drink and have a C3 and a TVR. I only earn just over 20K a year, I do not mind us looking after people who need looking after which is why benefits were introduced but I object to us paying for the scumbags that have not and never intend to have a job. 6 years ago when I was made redundant I was treated like s**t by the Job Centre after having worked for over 30 years. This Country needs sorting out as we working people are being robbed.
Rawwr said:
You can turn the heating off and put on a nice jumper or a particularly attractive cardigan.
I think we accept, as a society, that people live in houses which are warm and dry - and no amount of cardies will enable that. Even if you lived in a thermal suit you'd need a fire or you'd freeze to death in most parts of the UK at some times of the year.Conversely, you can leave your car in the garage and walk to work/the shops - your kids can walk/get the bus to school and so on - there's isn't the same level of 'accepted use' with cars as there is with home heating.
It's actually insulting to even compare them really - it's like saying "people in Africa are considered high risk because they have insufficient food and clean water - I wonder how I would fare if we used a similar scale to check my access to foie gras and quails eggs with fine champagne"...
All this talk of average income is b
ks - it means nothing at all...
Fuel Poverty is attempting to identify people who need genuine help and it seems a reasonable approach to do that.
Attempting to apply it to your ability to use an expensive 2 tonne luxury product to carry your lazy arse to the betting shop is nothing like the same thing...
ks - it means nothing at all...Fuel Poverty is attempting to identify people who need genuine help and it seems a reasonable approach to do that.
Attempting to apply it to your ability to use an expensive 2 tonne luxury product to carry your lazy arse to the betting shop is nothing like the same thing...
There should be a higher level of 'accepted use' when it comes to vehicles, as practically everything in the country links back to them somehow. Think of everything you did today and trace the link back to diesel/petrol, it wont take many steps. Did you go to a shop? Even if you cycled there, how did the goods get there and how did your cycle get to the place you bought it from? Diesel lorries bring us almost everything, but do people appreciate it? No they launch newspaper campaigns complaining about the noise.
We shouldn't compare increasing motoring costs with homeless people freezing to death in shop doorways but by the same token we need to shake off the belief that a car is a purely luxury optional product. People dont sit in jams in diesel Astra's at 8am for the luxury of it. For the majority of people a vehicle is neccessary, basic transport. I personally dont want to be forced back to the 1800's where the next town was a day's journey away, where everybody has to live 3 metres from their workplace because the Government launched a war against transport. Thats not good for anybody.
Sure, a car can be a luxury item but the fact is people are cutting back on food and heating purely to put fuel in their cars or else they'd have no income. Peoples anger at the suggestion petrol should be included as a measure of some form of poverty (i'd call it transport poverty personally) is due to a misguided notion that nobody needs a car and we all buy boring ecoboxes and sit in jams on boring roads for fun.
We shouldn't compare increasing motoring costs with homeless people freezing to death in shop doorways but by the same token we need to shake off the belief that a car is a purely luxury optional product. People dont sit in jams in diesel Astra's at 8am for the luxury of it. For the majority of people a vehicle is neccessary, basic transport. I personally dont want to be forced back to the 1800's where the next town was a day's journey away, where everybody has to live 3 metres from their workplace because the Government launched a war against transport. Thats not good for anybody.
Sure, a car can be a luxury item but the fact is people are cutting back on food and heating purely to put fuel in their cars or else they'd have no income. Peoples anger at the suggestion petrol should be included as a measure of some form of poverty (i'd call it transport poverty personally) is due to a misguided notion that nobody needs a car and we all buy boring ecoboxes and sit in jams on boring roads for fun.
XitUp said:
A car is a luxury. A truck to deliver stuff to the shops is not.
Yet we're both expected to pay the same price for diesel?A car isn't a luxury. It might be for a minority but I doubt all 33 million drivers in this country have a car for fun. Surely they'd all have Lambo's and Focus ST's if that were the case. Not diesel Octavia's.
martin84 said:
XitUp said:
A car is a luxury. A truck to deliver stuff to the shops is not.
Yet we're both expected to pay the same price for diesel?A car isn't a luxury. It might be for a minority but I doubt all 33 million drivers in this country have a car for fun. Surely they'd all have Lambo's and Focus ST's if that were the case. Not diesel Octavia's.
R300will said:
You use a Focus ST as an example of luxury? The lambo i understand but the focus?
First thing off the top of my head, but it sort of proves my point. If a car was purely a luxury then people would buy the Focus ST rather than the TDCi variants they actually buy. Performance cars would outweigh dull diesel boxes.No, not really. People still want practicality from their car. They just don't NEED a car.
I could cycle to work or get the bus. It would take me longer in both cases but it is doable. When I move closer to work I will cycle.
A lot of people live within cycling distance of work, but choose to drive.
I could cycle to work or get the bus. It would take me longer in both cases but it is doable. When I move closer to work I will cycle.
A lot of people live within cycling distance of work, but choose to drive.
XitUp said:
No, not really. People still want practicality from their car. They just don't NEED a car.
I could cycle to work or get the bus. It would take me longer in both cases but it is doable. When I move closer to work I will cycle.
I dont care what you, Dave in accounts, Bob in the shop or your auntie could do. Just because you could make do without it doesnt mean 33million others could, I'm so sick of this 'well I can cycle so 33 million motorists drive for no reason' argument I am close to a heart attack. Talk about looking no further than the end of your own nose.I could cycle to work or get the bus. It would take me longer in both cases but it is doable. When I move closer to work I will cycle.
We can't all live just down the road from where we work. When 'jobs for life' categorically vanished it wasnt a problem because we knew we could go further to get jobs and could handle a variable job market because we could drive...oh no wait, they dont want us to do that now either.
XitUp said:
A lot of people live within cycling distance of work, but choose to drive.
Many dont and have no choice. So your argument is flawed.Terminator X said:
I predict that oil will run so low at some point in the future that fuel will cost too much for your average Joe to buy 
best we all start moving closer to our place of work. Hold on, we get taxed on that too ...
TX.
The problem right now has nothing to do with Oil. Its tax. Tax which can be removed with one click on a computer. Anyway, too many people make too much money out of Oil being sold and they wont let it 'run out' without a fight. best we all start moving closer to our place of work. Hold on, we get taxed on that too ...TX.
We've made the world smaller by making things far away actually quite close, fuel already costs too much for the average person in an average car yet we can spare enough fuel to pour billions of gallons into untaxed fuel to fly holidaymakers round the world. Very weird.
The problem with a big world made small is there's no going back without going backwards. I dont think anybody here wants to go backwards. Backwards is a failure.
martin84 said:
I dont care what you, Dave in accounts, Bob in the shop or your auntie could do. Just because you could make do without it doesnt mean 33million others could, I'm so sick of this 'well I can cycle so 33 million motorists drive for no reason' argument I am close to a heart attack. Talk about looking no further than the end of your own nose.
So all those 33 million people (other than me, Dave, Bob and my auntie, of course) couldn't do without their cars if they had to?b
ks.Average commute is less than 10 miles. Unless you're disabled, that is easy doable on a bike.
http://assets.dft.gov.uk/statistics/series/nationa...
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