price of gas going up?

[blokeinsussex]

Comparing European prices to American prices may, on the surface, look like a jolly good bet. That is only on the surface, its not until we start comparing American life styles to European lifestyles.

Lets look at the physical geography of the USA to Europe:

http://goeurope.about.com/od/europeanmap...on-map.htm provides an overlay of the USA and Europe. The whole of Europe is 'tiny' compared to the whole of USA.

The typical Brit rarely drives that far on any given day, while here in California millions commute 100 miles to and from work daily. England, Wales Scotland would fit neatly inside of California. Further East of me here in the Central Valley, Stockton, Tracy and surrounding areas are bedroom communities, folk live there and drive the 80-120 miles to the Bay area to work. Every morning about 2 million people get up, and get in their car (yes by themselves) and drive to work.

The alternative is to drive to Dublin/Pleasanton and hop BART - if you work any where near its line. The other alternative is to take one of three daily trains to Oakland, then hop on a bus or Bart to get to other parts. this only works well if you work close to a BART station.

L.A. is another commuter paradise, as many of the outlying communities of L.A. are actually bedroom communities, and again a couple three million people jump in their car and drive 50 or so miles to work.

So while the typical UK person may be spending more per volume of petrol, they are most likely using far less than a typical American.

On top of this, a lot of goods in the USA goes cross country via big rig trucks (lorry). Compared to say the UK, our rail system is nearly nonexistent. Yes we have long rail routes and lots of them, but the density of rail compared to the UK is woeful. Here in California we have two (just two) passenger train routes, the majority of rail traffic is just cargo.

Where as most UK towns and villages and suburbs are tied in to major work areas with rail and mass transit, the USA is built on a network of roads and spread out in the Automobile Era.

Los Angeles up until 1940's had an extensive network of trollies and even passenger train lines from the surrounding areas into the city. In the 1940's, after WWII, all of those tracks were pulled up in favor of the freeway system. L.A. is now surviving on mostly private automobiles, with a mass transit system that comes from the third world (compared to most European nations).

Depending on how you look at the statistics, and what factors you play into commute time, most Americans spend nearly twice as much time traveling to and from work than most Brits.

Americans fill up over twice as often as UK folk.

And of course the taxes. While a UK citizen is paying more in fuel, they are paying far less in health insurance. There are various other minor social programs that are ran off the taxes generated in the UK that come directly out of the pocket of a US citizen.

A UK citizen gets more 'bang' from their buck. While some things are covered by the small Federal and State taxes levied against petrol, the reality is that most increases in price per volume is pure profit for the oil companies and they sheer the sheeple on a yearly basis.

Bowyn, forgive me, but I can't help but feel your view of the UK is a bit skewed. Yes, the US is larger, but many people I work with still endure long commutes in excess of 50 miles.

If you live in or close to a major city or larger town, then you may(may!) be ok, but in general the bus and train routes to and from many villages/towns in the UK are woeful, with road being the only viable option for travelling. If I wanted to use public transport to get to work(12 miles away) I'd have to walk a mile, then take two buses to get me to work, which would take 2.5 hours one way, to do 12 miles! We also lost major chunks of our rail network following WWII as road freight and personal car ownership became more common. All the local villages in my county used to be connected by rail links. Now none are.

As for getting more bang for our buck I dunno about that. We may have a large rail network but most of our goods are trucked just like yours, so fuel price has a major effect. Our fuel is roughly $9 a gallon, I really do not see how that is better bang for our buck, we pay far more per mile travelled than you guys at $4 a gallon, even with your on average less efficient engines(diesel passenger cars are common here, since 2008 more than 50% of new car sales have been diesel cars, getting on average in excess of 38 US MPG/45 Imperial MPG)

I guess what I'm really trying to say here is that when it comes to fuel prices, we get screwed. Before tax we have the cheapest fuel in europe. Something like 75% of the pump price is taxation with the filling station only receiving a couple of pence per litre sold as profit.

Overall as I understand it the US has a much cheaper cost of living, your housing is cheaper, your goods are cheaper, your cars are cheaper, your food is cheaper and your fuel is cheaper. The only area where i believe you may pay more is for health insurance, but I don't know what your average healthcare payments are as a percentage of your gross income.

On average, how much of a US person's gross income is paid out in health insurance? Here we pay 11% of our gross in National Insurance to fund the NHS.

As a gear head with a thirsty car, the price of fuel is a real bug bear of mine. When I started driving in 2002 fuel was less than half what it costs now, it sucks