Taxi Driver Online

On a similar track, numpty truck driver taking the roundabout too fast and completely knackering the traffic coming in and going out of the city.

_________________
IDFIMH

Mrs Sx to me - 'Are you ignoring me?'

Me to Mrs Sx - 'Why did you ask that?'

Mrs Sx to me - 'I asked you a question, and you didn't answer'

Me to Mrs Sx - 'Sorry dear, what was the question?'

Mrs Sx to me - 'I've forgotten what it was now'.

_________________
IDFIMH

Customers leaving rubbish in my new car.

Family leaving rubbish in my new car.

_________________
IDFIMH

the emergency services using blues and twos at 03.30 in the morning on a quiet main road with no vehicles about

_________________
lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

Rear seat belt alarms.

I spend my life telling people the reason the alarms are going off isn't that bits are falling off the car; it's because they are not adhereing to a law that's been in place for 37 years.

_________________
IDFIMH

Mine is the diesel premium.

Diesel is averaging 197.2p a litre this morning, unleaded 173.2p. Twenty four pence between two fuels that come out of the same barrel, and the gap has been widening rather than closing these past couple of months.

Put it in year money. Thirty thousand miles at a genuine 45 mpg is about 3,030 litres, so every single penny on the pump price is thirty quid a year. That 24p gap is seven hundred pounds. Premium diesel at 215.6p is another 18.4p on top of ordinary, five hundred and fifty more again, and a fair bit of that goes in because the pump is nearest the door rather than because the engine asked for it.

I do the fuel side for a small fleet rather than drive a cab, so I will not pretend I do your hours. But thirty pounds a penny is the number I wish someone had told me years ago.

What I can’t work out is why fuel is so expensive.

Yes I get the nutter in the USA doesn’t help, but 30% of cars now don’t use petrol or diesel, so surely supply has got to exceed demand.

_________________
IDFIMH

Why fuel is expensive

1) most british (and american) refineries were designed and built in the 60's and 70's to produce mainly petrol

2) North sea oil nowadays is the thick sludge that's only good for producing RFO's so not much use in uk refineries

3) more modern refineries featuring hydrocrackers which produce DIESEL and Jetfuel were built mostly in Russia,Poland Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait which funnily enough cannot now supply and the 4 uk refineries that are left with just one exception won't modernise with the imminent threat of the ban on diesel and petrol cars what would be the point ?

4) the government wants high prices to drive us all to buy electric cars

The green lobby won the argument in britain years ago and now we all have to pay the price

_________________
lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

When diesel cars first took off, wasn't diesel a lot cheaper than petrol at the pumps?

So to that extent, diesel was win-win - cheaper to fill the car, and much better mpg.

But years later (and a good few years ago now) didn't the government change the fuel duty in relative terms to make diesel more expensive, thus to negate the mpg advantage - and they knew that because of the mpg advantage drivers would still be willing to pay for dearer diesel.

And, of course, while at one time the government promoted diesel as the green option, they changed their minds on that, and to that extent that also justified the higher diesel prices in terms of a deterrent to running diesel motors?

In fact that's all one reason I changed back to petrol after nearly two decades of diesel cars - over that time the price advantage of running a diesel had disappeared, or at least it was a lot less clear-cut.

(That's not the only reason I changed back to petrol, but certainly a factor.)