Speaking to someone in the car trade, who has a bit of knowledge.

And he says their are between 10-15% fewer vehicles on the road, compared with 5 years ago, which does beg the question as too why fuel is so high.

It's going to get higher because the EU have stopped buying oil from Iran.

re traffic, Ive noticed the roads are quiet now on Fridays, some weeks its like a Bank holiday sunday morning

People are cutting back on car use, because they can't afford it.
Between fuel, insurance and the state of the economy, people are using their cars less.
Two car families are becoming one car families and others have got rid of them altogether.

Makes you wonder how HMG is going to make up the lost revenue, doesn't it?

Someone else will buy Iran's oil and the EU will buy from elsewhere.
It won't make any difference.

China will happily buy all the oil they can get

Then we can buy it off them +5% markup for the Chinese, in fact it will come straight here and just be invoiced to China who will invoice us

and with petroplus about to go into receivership that will take out coryton (they've already closed middlesborough) we are going to be highly dependant on imports of diesel as opposed to imports of crude for processing so I can see £1.60 plus by Easter with petrol reaching £1.40

Petroplus shares fell to a record low on Tuesday after the Swiss oil refiner’s mounting losses this year spurred its banks to freeze a $1.1bn loan facility, plunging the company into turmoil.
The company, Europe’s largest independent refiner, warned in a statement that this credit facility was “critical to allow the company’s operating units to meet their obligations when due”.

The first three quarters of 2011 witnessed a significant slump in petrol sales in the UK, and the AA has said that this is a trend that is likely to continue into 2012.
Petrol sales at the pumps between January and September 2011 totalled 13.9 billion litres – compared with 14.9 billion litres between the same months in 2010 (a fall over over 6%), and 16.3 billion litres in the pre-recession period of January to September 2008.
The cause of this reduced petrol consumption is the economic downturn together with the rising price of fuel, making motorists think twice about making journeys unless they are absolutely necessary. According to an AA/Populus survey of more than 20,000 members, around 40% said that they will either make less journeys or try to drive more economically in 2012.
The AA revealed that it was generally drivers from lower socio-economic groups that intend to be more economical with fuel. Regionally, the south-west of England and Northern Ireland were most confident about reducing car use, while Londoners seemed least likely to change driving habits to be more economical.