Analogies
In the UK petrol sits around £1.30 per litre or around $2.20 Aussie.
Amazingly you can buy a 12 pack of 750ml glass bottled Perrier mineral water for around £1.15 per bottle in the UK. That’s slightly less than the cost of one litre of fuel in the UK.
Currently city fuel prices in Australia drift around the $1.40 to $1.50 Mark. How much is a bottle of quality Aussie Mount Franklin in plastic? Well at Woolies a slightly smaller 600ml plastic bottle with price drop will set you back $2.15. That’s only $3.58 per litre!
So in Aust should we be greatful our fuel is so much cheaper than a bottle of spring water?
Apologies for comparing quality Australian spring water in plastic to Perrier in glass. Not a contest at all.
Without comment on the numbers a good part of petrol pricing is courtesy of government taxes. In most jurisdictions it is one of the taxes that is kept as opaque as possible so consumers do not see it in front of them every time they fill up.
as well as the price basis (eg Singapore not Australia)
Still does not help to explain why we pay so much more for local bore water in a plastic bottle than the UK. I’ve looked for the hidden taxes on Australian bottled water and can’t find any. Did not check the “dumb bunnies’ tax though?
Glad our cars run on petrol and not Mount Franklin. Although if they did our water comes free from the roof.
Closure: A few months ago my 2009 got a long missed campaign to replace the timing chain and resolve an ephemeral but recurring emissions problem. Since that was done there is no longer any difference between any of the petrols and it behaves as expected. Case closed. The difference was probably related to the engine being marginally out of timing spec and the BP additive mix coincidentally just worked more effectively under the circumstance. All fuels now return the same economy as BP, BP did not get worse.
( I know you were losing sleep over that conundrum, ever since )
Thanks BBG! That definitely is interesting to hear
Additive fuels are made for a reason (whether that’s increased sales through marketing or actual performance improvements), so there should be some observable effects. Anecdotes like yours shouldn’t be dismissed. Anecdotes are data, they just have a sample size of one. So it’s been interesting how these fuel types affect your car specifically. Thanks again for all the updates
Car was stolen in January of last year. Gave me the final excuse that I needed to quit driving … completely. Best decision I’ve made in a long time. I miss the whole, expensive, stressful nightmare of crawling around Melbourne’s utterly chaotic traffic shambles about as much as most people miss a severe headache . A thousand dollars to register a car and $1.50 a litre. No thanks, I’d much rather wait for the next really windy day… so I can stand on the corner and throw handfuls of cash into the air.
Fine if you have public transport options. We have one taxi for the whole area. You need to book days ahead and not at any time they do school runs etc!
Lateral thinking - we could do 9 out of 10 trips driving return between 5km and 10km. Fine for a decent battery or petrol golf cart. Only you can’t get one fully road registered and there is no footpath to drive on. On the lookout for a cheap buggy and second hand trotter that likes eating weeds just to make the point.
Obviously, it is “that easy” for me and many others or we wouldn’t be doing it . Rarely, if ever, use public transport. I enjoy walking. As for taxis, you must be rolling in spare cash.
I was hoping to open up that there are other circumstances without appearing too envious.
Agree it is not too hard for some. It depends where you live. It’s a great choice which I took when working in the big city. I had a bus stop 10m from the front door, all three major super markets within a block and a choice of 4 bus services. And a taxi rank around the corner for when work paid! We even acquired a knack at predicting breaking news by the frequency and type of sirens down the main road.
We now live on a rural acerage. That’s a choice that precludes walking to the shops mostly. Although it is only 2.5km each way to a very small town centre with one only small IGA, I could walk it. The ice cream might melt on the way. The valuable and important half of the family has had two knee replacements so might be up to it now too? It’s also the same to the local station and a long wait between trains. Could ride the bike and hope it is still there when you get back. If you then take two buses you can get to the specialist in the big town about 3 hrs later. Or drive it in 25 minutes plus delays?
I guess if we gave up the car we would be rolling in cash and might be able to afford a taxi occassionaly. There is a degree of frustration in having to run a car to do short trips that a typical golf buggy could do. Only you can’t use them as such on our roads. However the traffic laws do allow us to have a horse and a cart or buggy which we could legally use on the road instead. Both options are low cost and can be low carbon, while horse poo is handy for the garden.
p.s. although sealed our roads do not have a sealed edge and no footpaths leaving cycling a risky option for some, although in Qld where there is one you can still ride a bike on a footpath legally.
I had a neighbour, now deceased, who somehow never got a driver’s licence or owned a car. He was a child of the depression and veteran of WW2 - a small-scale dairy farmer who lived alone, when he retired he sold his cattle. He probably had a horse and would have ridden to town in the old days but I didn’t know him then. If he wanted to go shopping or had an appointment he used to ride his tractor about 5km up to the main road in the morning and then get the school bus to town, reversing the procedure in the afternoon.
As he got older and more frail vet’s affairs eventually persuaded him that he could get meals on wheels and that they would lay on a taxi for medical appointments etc. He used to get neighbours and anyone really to do special shopping for him. He wasn’t a drinker but Mars Bars were an important food group for him that MoW didn’t supply. His little dairy and house stand empty now bought by the mine. Perhaps when they too are gone life will return.
Fencing doesn’t stop those eagles doing their low level take offs and that they insist on swooping around at head/windscreen level anytime they do decide to rise off the ground.
Mostly applicable to pedestrians, bikes (motor and push) and open top cars, but a well placed sabre (fencing version) cut has been known to deter birds as well as dogs. Got to watch the bigger ones though; they get nasty when angered.
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