Fuel price crisis, alternative travel?

[bertelli_1]

The £1.50 litre of fuel will be upon us soon so I've started looking at alternatives to get me to work. My commute is 11 miles, starts at the edge of town & work is in the country.

To travel by car takes 20 mins & uses 2 litres of fuel (£3.00 @ £1.50/litre).
Cycling would take about 1 hour & use more energy than I have but costs £0 (not to mention cycling along the notoriously dangerous A421)
My local bus route planner suggestion takes 2h14m & gets me to work at 09:39 (I start at 08:00) and lists walk, bus, coach, bus, bus, walk. Via 2 city centres. I couldn't find the cost on the website.
Walking would take around 3 hours (my day would start @ 5am & finish @ 9pm).
Or I could get a taxi.

So short of inventing a jetpack that runs on water it looks like we may all have to carry on driving.

[HellDiver]

bertelli_1 said:

The £1.50 litre of fuel will be upon us soon

No it won't.

[mmm-five]

You could always get a 50cc scooter that you can legally drive on your car licence (assuming you've had it for a while and have the relevant vehicle codes).

[Hub]

I bet £3.00 is still less than the bus would cost anyway.

[Dr.Doofenshmirtz]

Either a very small engined car (sub 1 litre) or Motorbike?
A 125cc bike will be quick enough for your needs and return around 100mpg.

ETA - my wife used to commute into work (around 30 miles round trip) with a Mazda Xedos V6 ~30mpg. We sold that and bought a bangernomics Renult Clio 1.4 ~42mpg and it's saving her £20 per week at the current fuel price. That's £80 a month - quite a big saving, and she prefers the Clio cos it's easier to park.
I commute a 70 mile round trip by 900cc motorcycle and it saves me a fortune (time and money).

Edited by Dr.Doofenshmirtz on Wednesday 28th April 12:22

[kambites]

Cycling is not free. Don't underestimate the extra food that you'll need if you're getting that kind of exercise - it's pretty much the cost of an extra meal a day. I've never actually looked into it, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if decent food costs many times more than petrol per unit energy it contains.

An hour is pessimistic, though. I used to cycle 12.5 miles each way to work and back and I got it down to about 40 minutes each way pretty quickly.


Or you could just buy a more economical car or a small motorbike.

Edited by kambites on Wednesday 28th April 12:14

[5678]

fk me it's all doom and gloom today!

[TheRoadWarrior]

I used to cycle 11miles to work, we had shower facilities at work and the route was through nice countryside which helped. IMO its the best way to get to work, gives you a much more positive outlook on the day plus gets you some exercise. I love driving my car but would rather just do fun miles in it.

~40minutes on a mountain bike with skinny tyres was the norm for me.

[OnTheOverrun]

kambites said:

Cycling is not free. Don't underestimate the extra food that you'll need if you're getting that kind of exercise - it's pretty much the cost of an extra meal a day. I've never actually looked into it, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if decent food costs many times more than petrol per unit energy it contains.

And if you don't have showers at work, you'll stink the place out.

[kambites]

OnTheOverrun said:

And if you don't have showers at work, you'll stink the place out.

Get a job with better on-site facilities.

Seriously though, if prices ever did rise enough to force people out of cars, things like showers in at office would become significant selling points when companies were recruiting new employees.

Edited by kambites on Wednesday 28th April 12:26

[Colonial]

Get a better job.

[mat205125]

A diesel shed has joined my ranks for commuting work. A commute 45 miles each way to work, and that has got a bit silly at 25mpg, so I'm hoping for 50+ from the new shed.

ETA

If work was only 11 miles away, I'd be cycling

Edited by mat205125 on Wednesday 28th April 12:33

[MrLou]

bertelli_1 said:

To travel by car takes 20 mins & uses 2 litres of fuel (£3.00 @ £1.50/litre).

The cost of driving to work isn't just the cost of fuel, you should add into that equation the cost of insurance, road tax and maintenance.

Then you can compare the real cost of going to work by car against the alternatives.

[Caruso]

Vectrix electric scooter. Top speed 62mph so ok mixing with A-road traffic, 30-50 mile range so ok for 11 miles x 2. Costs about 1p per mile in electricity, £0 road tax. They go for about £3k on Ebay.

[mat205125]

MrLou said:

bertelli_1 said:

To travel by car takes 20 mins & uses 2 litres of fuel (£3.00 @ £1.50/litre).

The cost of driving to work isn't just the cost of fuel, you should add into that equation the cost of insurance, road tax and maintenance.

Then you can compare the real cost of going to work by car against the alternatives.

That depends on whether you would have the car regardless of whether you'd commute in it. Wear and tear / maintenance is a variable that is mileage dependent, however insurance and road tax are annual costs regardless of use and mileage.

[MrLou]

mat205125 said:

MrLou said:

bertelli_1 said:

To travel by car takes 20 mins & uses 2 litres of fuel (£3.00 @ £1.50/litre).

The cost of driving to work isn't just the cost of fuel, you should add into that equation the cost of insurance, road tax and maintenance.

Then you can compare the real cost of going to work by car against the alternatives.

That depends on whether you would have the car regardless of whether you'd commute in it. Wear and tear / maintenance is a variable that is mileage dependent, however insurance and road tax are annual costs regardless of use and mileage.

Very true. But it's still possible to estimate how much the car costs per mile given an estimated annual mileage.

[anonymous-user]

Can't afford an new car in the short term, 60 miles round commute so cycling is out, I might do a 60 miler on a weekend once in a blue moon however I'm not doing a 4hr cycle everyday.

I have two options: -
1: Work from home more (hard to agree but possible 2 days per week).
2: Park 5-10 miles out and cycle a bit.

Outside of that I could get a motorbike, but the wife would never agree to it and frankily I know I'm not sensible enough to drive one.

Edited by anonymous-user on Wednesday 28th April 12:50

[Darth Paul]

Caruso said:

Vectrix electric scooter. Top speed 62mph

Really? I used to see some old boy on an electric pushbike causing mayhem on a NSL A road, probably doing about 15mph! I'm going for the 125cc route. Can get a good looking YZFR-125 for £2.5k 2nd hand, £4k new on 0% at the mo. £15 to tax, £100 to insure and gets 100mpg. The money I save is going straight into a Scooby!

[Torquey]

A motorbike/moped will be my next step when fuel becomes rediculous.

[The Hitman]

bertelli_1 said:

My commute is 11 miles...

To travel by car takes 20 mins & uses 2 litres of fuel (£3.00 @ £1.50/litre)...

So, what is the price atm? £1.20, so that's £2.40 each way. So its an extra £1.20 every day, which is £6.20 per week, which is about around £26 per month I recon.

I think you'll find it'll cost you more to change the method of trnasport and for it to pay-off in terms of saving you money against the cost of changing will take longer than you think.