UK Intentionally Pricing Out the Poor from Driving

reply to post by Domo1


if a government doesn't allow me to use a car legally, or makes it impossible financially, it is restricting my right to travel freely.

how did come to a point where the government dictates how you travel, in your own country.

but your way of thinking is why they get away with it.

you're focusing on what you are using, instead of what you are actually doing, which is travelling.

whether you use your feet, or a car, a horse, or a bike, it is a right as a free human being to move around, in your transportation of choice, and no government has a right to interfere with that as long as you are not a threat to others.

When it gets to the stage where the normal working man cannot afford a car then there will be revolution. If only our nations had spent the same money on researching new fuels as it has on war in recent years then maybe we wouldn't be in this position.

Very interesting figures from the OP, great post. I know plenty of people who need to use their car for work, and now no longer use the car for anything else. Buses are too expensive for families to use, which would explain why, at least round here, they are always empty. Trains are now prohibitively expensive to use. Last year I was at a train station waiting to go to Edinburgh. The journey is only around 20 minutes. Waiting at the station were two young adults probably aged 18 to 20. They were talking about their jobs, this was their first job, and the girl was in tears saying that the rise in fares meant she really couldn't afford to go to work anymore.

There is no way that public transport should EVER be too expensive for someone to use to go to their place of work.

Another thing I've always pointed out to people is that we pay VAT on top of the fuel duty...yes they make us pay tax on the tax ????

reply to post by TiredofControlFreaks


How do you know he didn't? Personally I think smoking is a bad habit and very detrimental to your health. However I don't believe that you guys should be punished for this choice, as an adult who is perfectly capable of understanding the dangers it's your right to smoke if you so choose. That also means the government shouldn't have the right to tax it heavily/ban it as if to say 'we know what's best for you' just like the Nazi's (that's right I went there!)

These taxes on things like this on peoples chosen lifestyle is one step towards 1984 where they start to tell you what you can and can't have. Driving in the UK is something that is being reserved for only the wealthy now. Insurance is a complete joke, my cousins in the states don't believe me when I told them the price of my insurance alone. I can no longer afford to drive at all unless my companies paying for me, I'd literally need to win the lottery to be able to afford it. Even an extra £10,000 a year wouldn't be enough for a really decent car.insurance/road tax etc. Public transport is constantly going up as well. It gets risen a certain % at the start of the season like that tell you, then suddenly the price goes up in 10p increments every few weeks. The train fair in my local area has literally doubled over the last 7/8 years and it's still one of the worst in the country. Atm I get in to town an hour before I start work because the trains are so unreliable that if I don't go in so early I will be late one day every couple weeks which is unacceptable.

Oh yea also if they want more people using public transport then why punish us for using it? How on earth is it legal to charge more during peak times when you know people have no choice but to go in?? It's insane and should NEVER be allowed. They say that they can't cope and need less people to take the train! wel;l their profits are on the rise every damn year so they can re-invest and pas the savings down to us. The claim that they will eventually make the fares cheaper yea right, they are going to pass it on to us once they get the infrastructure sorted.

So this is out major choice in the face of getting a car....I prefer driving, but at this time at the age of 25 I am too young to be earning enough to have a car decent enough to not be breaking down all the time and that will need loads of work done on it. A big issue for us younger drivers on lower incomes is that if anything unexpected goes wrong with the car (which always it does) then being able to afford the parts and repairs often another expense that we can't afford. I live just a few miles from a major town at the moment and it is a nightmare not having a car here, I am already tempted to move back into the town, but am guna stick it out for a bit. Literally can not get a bus anywhere after 7pm and they only run once an hour and only a couple run on Sundays. I am literally 4 miles from a very major town in the UK and think it's mad that ordinary people without a car can be so forgotten about. The elderly around here are prisoners in their homes for a good chunk of the week.

It's not just petrol. With the new changes to alcohol pricing, poor people are also being targeted for their consumption of alcohol.

Good thread. It highlights just how expensive motoring is becoming in the UK.

Americans incredulous at the cost should look and feel glad they still live in a country where the government fears the motorist. The numbers look pretty much spot on. Although, it makes the assumption about buying new when many people buy used.

Many are turning to 'bangernomics'

In the UK the motorist is a big docile cash cow to be milked for all its worth.

Oh great, I had to give up smoking because I can't afford them.
I had to start growing my own vegatables, because I can't afford them.
I had to start brewing my own beer, because soon, I want be able to afford them.
And now I want be able too drive, because I want be able to afford it.....has anyone know where i can get a cheap horse?

The average, median wage, whatever you want to call it is very severely skewed. The majority of working class(I appologise for using this term but it fits) people are earning much less than £20,000 a year. In fact I would suggest an verage of £12,000 hits the mark more closely. Please don't start by trying to justify the workings of how you arrive at the national average, highest earners, lowest earners etc. etc. Be real, ask about, ask the milk man , ask the supermarket checkout girl, ask any manual workers, in fact ask any working class person(NOT any banker, upper management, soliciters or politicians or their ilk) and you will come to the let me take it back to the basics. NO matter what anyone else wants to try and label it a country is ultimately defined by its working class people (dont be pedantic and say a country is the land or within the borders). Any country prospers or not depending on how the working classes are treated. Let me define working class. A class of people that a working society cannot function without. Not working class, bankers, politicians, big business people, analists, upper management ie all people producing no products or ESSENTIAL services. Now the problem arises that the non working class owns all the essential money and political power and they see the working class as a cash cow to keep them in the fashion they think they deserve. A happy healthy workforce leads to a happy healthy country.

reply to post by crayzeed


I did state later on about the fact that I thought the median wage was too high but I wanted to keep my workings out to documented facts so that people could pick less holes in it. No matter what though the figures still make you sick to the stomach.

reply to post by clintdelicious


NO ONE stood up for smokers - ever! No one ever said that it is wrong to use taxation for the purpose of "social engineering". EVERYONE was happy to see smokers get it while bent over!

Now you have all opened the doors for the government to use taxation for the sole purpose of controlling your behavior. What they did to the smokers, they will now do to those who are overwieght, like to have a drink now and again, those who wear perfume, those who drive, those who use electricity and on and on and on.

First they came for the jews, and I said nothing because I wasn't a jew........

Tired of Control Freaks

reply to post by TiredofControlFreaks


A short clip on that point:

UKWOLF

YOU GOT IT!

The current anti-smoking campaign is the same campaign that Hitler ran in Germany during his time in power. He convinced the population that like the jews, smokers were dirty and the cause of disease, then he began to restrict places where smoking was allowed and even who was allowed (woman and jews were not)

And like jews, when the anti-smoking campaign started, smokers tried appeasement. They wanted to be seen as polite and considerate of others.

No one ever said - wait a minute - if ventilation is good enough to protect workers in coal mines, where is mine gases are so deadly that miners would die in half an hour without ventilation, why isn't ventilation good enough to control tobacco smoke?

No one ever said - wait a minute - the claims of "researchers" and their bought and paid for studies are becoming so outrageously and patently false that we need to question their integrity. (No safe level of exposure to second-hand-smoke, third hand smoke is so toxic, second hand smoke kills thousands every year, you need gale force winds to sufficiently ventilate a room).

Now all of these things are accepted by a compliant and gullible population. The time is almost ripe to begin loading smokers in cattle cars.

But if the population doesn't speak up for smokers now - don't expect smokers to speak up for you!

Tired of Control Freaks

Originally posted by Domo1
reply to post by randomname

 

Well I think just about every court in the WORLD would agree that driving is a privilege and not a right. Are you automatically allowed to drive when you're born? Do you have to be a certain age? Do you have to pass a test? Do you need a license?

I see what you're going for OP but I think that your numbers (at least those about purchasing a vehicle) are pretty skewed. I also wonder if you are suggesting that people who earn more should pay more for the exact same privilege as someone else. Should I pay more because my car was more expensive?

I agree that the numbers may be off a bit. Buying a car every 5 years is very excessive. However, I think overall, the op has a point. I have tossed the theory around (driving up costs so only a certain class can drive) here in America as well. I know our prices aren't quite as bad, but it is approaching a real problem. Driving is a priveledge... here in some American cities, that's not entirely true. I mean, technically, it is. But most cities do not have adequate public transportation. There is no bus system or similar that will run from my home to my work. Our cities were not set up with public transport in mind.

Don't you think the elitists ponder how great life would be if the cattle would stop clogging up their freeways?

Originally posted by lacrimosa
the average person should realize that buying cars new should be left to the rich and the stupid.

Especially the stupid. I only bought a new car once, 1987 iirc. I never made that mistake again.I bought my current van when it was two years old. I bought it at police auction for $1,000. I have driven it for 20 years so far. I do all of the maintenance and repair work myself. It still has the original engine, original transmission etc... I have had to replace the starter and alternator once, the battery twice(in 20 years 3 batteries total), shocks twice, and the rotors 3 times. Take care of your stuff and it will take care of you.

Originally posted by Domo1



Driving is a privilege not a right. If you can't afford the car, don't buy it.

Why don't you pull your head from out of your arse for once and act like a normal human being.
I live in a very rural area with negligible public transport, to get my weekly shopping is a 16+ miles round trip, a visit to the "local" shop is a six+ miles round trip, who then charge a large mark up on their goods for the "convenience". so don't try telling me owning a car is a privilege.

Public transport needs a major overhaul, instead of slaughtering foreigners for no reason that money could be spent on doing just that. We also need more nuclear power stations and ultimately to stop using so much oil, that includes using alternatives to make the massive amount of other products derived from oil, plastic being the obvious one. And i agree with the other poster that driving/owning a car is a privilege not a right, one that is going to become increasingly expensive...hence the need for better public transport. How on earth can someone say that owning a car is a human right?

reply to post by Scripter


You're obviously a city dweller who can walk to the shops so your opinion is invalid.

I am in the US, and am convinced the Obama administration has a parallel plan for us.

We have a LOT more access to petrofuels that y'all do. America has 25% of the planet's coal, and almost half of the high-quality coal. And just this week the Environmental Protection Agency came out with strict new standards that practically guarantee that no new coal plants will be built--not even in the desert southwest, where they would create jobs and have far less environmental impact, due to low humidity, and low rainfall/runoff.

America now uses less oil than a decade ago, with an additional 10 million people. But oil taxes go up and up, and the govt demands stricter and stricter standards on cars that make them lighter and less crash worthy. He has also slashed spending on roads, diverting the money to big construction projects in urban areas of "blue" (pro-democrat) states.

It is a trans-national cabal that has decided that freedom of movement is simply too much freedom for the peasants.

The Prices of Oil goes increase Day by Day. A normal or average person can't survive easily.

reply to post by michael1983l

You've got it the wrong way round,the poor (people who dont work for one reason or another)are pushing the cost of motoring up for every law abiding motorist by not buying insurance which means we law abiding citizens have to cover their losses thus increasing insurance costs for everyone that bothers to buy it