I Support the lorry drivers thread

Teki187

Teki187

Teki187

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Hundreds of lorry drivers angry at soaring fuel prices are setting off for protests in central London and along the M4 in Wales.

Hauliers say diesel prices topping 120p a litre, plus a planned 2p fuel tax rise, will drive firms "to the wall".

Protesters are demanding an "essential user" duty rebate for HGV drivers.

Source - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7420792.stm

Good on the lorry drivers, i have lots of respect for them.

Bring on the blockades!
 
I support the fuel protestors, but I disagree with "essential users".

In the absense of a decent affordable public transport system, the vast majority of vehicle users are essential users, not just the truck drivers.
 
puckdrop said:
I support the fuel protestors, but I disagree with "essential users".

In the absense of a decent affordable public transport system, the vast majority of vehicle users are essential users, not just the truck drivers.
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Indeed. I support protests about the tax on fuel - provided it doesn't lead to the level of disruption we saw a few years ago. But I don't support rebates for the hauliers alone; car drivers are equally deserving. My car is essential for work, there is no alternative.
 
dirtydog said:
Indeed. I support protests about the tax on fuel - provided it doesn't lead to the level of disruption we saw a few years ago. But I don't support rebates for the hauliers alone; car drivers are equally deserving. My car is essential for work, there is no alternative.
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But where do you draw the line? I'm sure plenty of parents out there claim that their SUV is essential for taking the kids to/from school ;)

My car wasn't "essential" for work, since there was the alternative of leaving 90 mins earlier and hoping to catch a train, then spending about 90 mins at the other end of my journey getting overcrowded (with annoying kids and smelly people) buses and walking the rest of the journey to work from the train station.

So for an extra 3 hours a day, I could save absolutely nothing on fuel and waste another 15 hours of my time a week.

No one's going to pay me to do that, certainly not the government, and it's bad enough that I should spend 2 hours a day travelling.

In the end I moved closer to work, but if I have to get a new job sometime soon it's just going to start all over again.
 
I agree £1.30p litre is crazy. I mean in the space of a year my fuel costs have nearly gone up £25 a week. I agree with others thou this shouldnt just be for lorry drivers normal everyday drivers who cant afford public transport or is unreasonable for them to use it IE takes 3 times as long with 4 changes. I think that lorry drivers should get something better then standard drivers because our transport industry is taking a beating and lots of people/ companys are feeling this. Overall price on fuel should be cheaper for drives and Lorry drivers maybe with some sort of extra help for transport industry. BOOOO on Fuel prices and Fuel Tax.
 
where do you draw the line though

just say for example that they cut duty...30p off a litre..and the crude prices continue to rise..so the price of fule still goes up...eventually the cut in duty will be negated and we will be back to square one. even if tax was abolished on fuel eventaully prices are going to hit this mark again in the future as fuel becomes more scarce...are people then willing for tax payers to essentially subsidise haulage firms..or are we happy to see them go to the wall then


and the other point is....if they cut duty on fuel its going to come from somewhere else..you get nowt for nowt these days...even if they knocked VAT off..or reduced to 5% or something...thats billions per week lost to the treasury..they will want it back somewhere else down the line
 
Duty should be dropped entirely.
Unfortunately labour have taxed and spent themselves into a corner.
They are taking record amounts of tax, borrowing record amounts of money from elsewhere, and spending record amounts of money on completely pointless quangos, wasting billions on the NHS, the same again on schools, Billions on benefits, billions on two wars, hundreds of millions on international aid and writing off debts.
They have no room to move, they are at the point where they have no slack in either direction, without a major correction in how they take tax, what they spend tax payers money on, things will only keep getting worse.
 
FTM said:
and the other point is....if they cut duty on fuel its going to come from somewhere else..you get nowt for nowt these days...even if they knocked VAT off..or reduced to 5% or something...thats billions per week lost to the treasury..they will want it back somewhere else down the line
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Or... the government could stop wasting "billions per week" on pointless social experiments, foreign aid, massive IT projects, pointless monuments (like the millennium dome, (granted, it's old now)), paying people the equivalent of £30,000 per year to stay at home and contribute nothing, wasting taxpayers' money on new kitchens/stupid food bills etc etc.
 
part of the problem is fuel duty isnt a flat rate either...with it being a percentage calculation every time fuel goes up so does the duty..se we get doubly shafted..who bloody introduced fuel duty!!
 
FTM said:
part of the problem is fuel duty isnt a flat rate either...with it being a percentage calculation every time fuel goes up so does the duty..se we get doubly shafted..who bloody introduced fuel duty!!
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It is both. Fuel duty is a flat rate but as fuel goes up, the VAT component increases.
 
So they're protesting against the rising cost of fuel and the crazy amount we're taxed on it here by driving to and through London and threatening blockades as we had before in 2000.

It's a sorry state of affairs when the blockades will have to commence and the country will be ground to a halt before the government actually will listen to the people!

This is something that potentially could affect everyone, whether you have a car or not. I'm sick fed up of living in a country where our elected government pays absolutley no attention to the views of the public and its about time we made a stand and said enough is enough - they have my full support!
 
dirtydog said:
It is both. Fuel duty is a flat rate but as fuel goes up, the VAT component increases.
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yup..and the biggest con..we dont just pay VAT on the fuel we buy..we pay the VAT on *** tax and the fuel...so we pay a tax on the bloody tax!

I see the current duty scheme was introiduced by the tories in 1993..it was such a good money maker labour didnt see the need to change it


and the tories promise a whole 3p a litre cut....big wow



the simple fact is no matter who is in charge wont make big cuts as its a great revenue scheme for them..they have us by the short and curlies...a govt needs income...we need fuel..they are also under pressure from other people for environmental reasons (any govt will be if they are labour or conservative) car users are evil and killing the planet so any incoming govt will still continue to shaft us....thats the stark reality..I have no doubt labour will get the boot at the next election...but NOTHING will change for the motorist
 
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