http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/news/39War-on-UK-motorists39-as.6657244.jp
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!
"'War on UK motorists' as the price of petrol soars to all-time high"
(7 posts)-
Posted 13 years ago #
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you have to find a garage with fuel in stock first
Posted 13 years ago # -
We've hardly used any for weeks.
Posted 13 years ago # -
still cheaper than the train
Posted 13 years ago # -
@Spitfire, not if you do the calculations properly...
I calculated carefully, and a season ticket Falkirk to Edinburgh is still (just) cheaper than a 60mpg vehicle (and most don't come close to that, despite what people think, much like their average speed estimates) even allowing for holidays, courses etc when I'm not getting the benefit of it.People see the "cost of motoring" as the cost of fuel they use for one particular week, they generally conveniently forget about the costs of tyres, oil, filters, spares, (screenwash etc), VED, insurance, recovery membership, depreciation, parking etc etc.
The cost of fuel is the most obvious bit, but far from the total!
Posted 13 years ago # -
For me to get to work, the train was slightly cheaper than the car compared against the cost of fuel alone (relies on me buying a 10 journey ticket).
Now I have a diesel it's probably about the same, depends how fast I drive really.
But if I take into account other costs, as Smudge points out, the train wins easily. It could get more complicated if I started putting a value on my time (but even that has its difficulties - the car is faster, but the train gives me time to do stuff (sleep!))
With car sharing, the train starts to lose out again.
Posted 13 years ago # -
The problem comes from the fact that people have a car anyway for personal/domestic use. This makes it easy to write off many of the capital costs and look only at the marginal cost of each extra commuting trip (which is much smaller).
For example, even if we both worked from a home office, we'd still own a car (and as neither of us drive to work it would get the same amount of use).
Given that we own it, I think the marginal cost of driving to work probably is pretty darn cheap.
Certainly if you car-share (I used to drop Claire off in South Queensferry on my way to Dunfermline) you save a fortune taking the car.
Posted 13 years ago #
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