Petrol/diesel prices

Electric cars would help with that - only use "juice" when moving (and I think more efficient when crawling than Petrol, but not sure?. I think some ne vehicles have the engine stop when you are stationary, and restart when you pull away again (some you have to put into neutral - at the lights for example - but Clarkson spun one on the track on Top Gear and the engine immediately stopped as it was stationary, which he thought would be alarming if there was a truck thundering towards you!

The States seem to be quite fond of commuter lanes - a lane reserved for people with "multiple occupancy" or some such term!. Insurance companies seem to want to make a meal out of giving a colleague a lift if they then share the petrol cost (you are operating a "for hire" service, or somesuch balderdash :( )

We have a disused single-track railway lane that wanders around the villages and winds up in the local town. Beeching closed it in the 60's. I've been on a cycling holiday in France and they tarmac'd their old single track railways as cycle routes - no incline very steep as the Trains couldn't cope of course! I presume small motorcycles can use it too. It would get the population fit too!

Excellent!

My commute to work involves me walking downstairs and into my office. Occasionally I change out of my PJ's first

Such a lot of time wasted commuting (apart from all the cost & pollution etc)

Good points Chopper. :thumb:

Maintaining precise tyre pressures would help too I think?

 

Sorry I've just scanned through the posts of this thread since I last posted, but just wanted to chip in on the big car vs little car point.

Many people assume that big car = gas guzzler, little car = eco vehicle.

It can be that way, but its not as simple as that. I prefer larger cars over smaller ones, but always try to get fuel efficient ones (within budget).

If the majority of your driving is going to be round town, the little car definitely wins. Its much lighter weight means it needs to use less energy (and therefore fuel) for all that stopping and starting. Put that little car on the motorway though, where you're cruising steadily at 70mph for hours, and that little gear box which is optimised for town work has the engine howling away at its most thirsty rate (between 3000 and 4000rpm - this is the speed where max airflow, and therefore fuel flow goes into your engine).

Conversely the bigger, heavier car is rubbish at stopping at starting. Put it on the motorway for a couple of hours at constant speed and that larger gearbox, optimised for cruising, has the engine rubbling along at 2500 rpm or thereabouts. It doesn't reach the optimum airflow point, so it is running more efficiently.

I currently have a little weightless 1.6 car, which does a grand total of 4mpg more than my old Volvo estate did. Round town, my little 1.6 is excellent, with mpg never dropping below the mid 30s, on a run I've measured it at 42mpg. My old Volvo estate by comparision did 38mpg on a run (despite being 750kg heavier and brick shaped), but in town I may aswell have just bought my own oil rig to fuel it.

Put 4 adult passengers in the old Volvo and it didn't even notice it, performance and fuel economy stayed the same. Put even my wife as a passenger in my little 1.6 and both performance and economy drop noticeably.

So, on the small car vs big car thing, it really depends on how you use it. The big car genuinely can win on fuel economy.

 

Got to agree that big doesn't always mean greedy on fuel.

Chopper, I'm afraid I'd rather sit in a nice warm car in a traffic jam than freeze my nuts off in the sleet and snow on one of those two wheeled death traps, mate.
Never could see the appeal of a motorbike in the UK, the time you save on the journey is spent getting the necessary clobber on and off.:D

Kristen, the 5 second gap sounds a good idea, but how do you keep it?
A gap of 5 seconds is usually taken by someone else on a motorway and in effect you almost start travelling backwards.:D
I've got cruse control and would love to use it, but I dont think its much use in this country, too much congestion, you are forever setting it, then braking etc.
Until everyone gets it, and uses it, its a non starter, I even find it slightly dangerous.

As to travelling at 50mph on a motorway, very dodgy, you get lorries trying to push you along as they like to travel at their maximum permitted speed.
And the last place I would like to be in a pile up on a motor way is the inside lane.

 

Definitely, sorry hope I didn't imply otherwise. But ... today's new car today, for someone, will be tomorrow's second-had car for someone else and, at that time, the buyer can choose a frugal model - or not! - just the same as a new car buyer can.

The rub is, of course, that a new car buyer is able to buy a more frugal car at an earlier date than the used car buyer - and the new car buyer is presumably more affluent ...

 

I've recently scrapped my 8 seater Nissan "Airbag" & bought a Freelander off a certain Gardeners Corner member.

It is much better on petrol than the Nissan. I need a workhorse for business, so a little car is no good.

The only problem is, I used to have a bumper sticker saying " No Owls left in this van overnight " Which I have now lost.

I am thinking about getting one saying "Caution, I brake for Wheelie Bins".

 

It would be, there were blocades when it went up to 80p a litre. Don't think we can tolerate much more of this without, as you said earlier, an alternative system in place already.

I already make my own (legal, I hasten to add) Rum @ 30% abv.

It wouldn't be too far fetched to go down this road,

Make Your Own Petrol out of Parsnip water And still get to eat the parsnips!

If only it were legal to use a still in this country.

 

Isn't it? I didn't know that.

I do know that it is perfectly legal now to make and use your own biofuel. Upto 2500 litres per year before you have to pay fuel duty on it. The last government brought in that law as one of their few genuine 'green' things. I don't know if there were/are restrictions on the type of fuel though. It is possible they were just letting us use diesel substitute made from filtered used cooking oil, although I seem to remember that it was mostly farmers complaining about all the methane gas from their sceptic tanks they were forced to waste, that pushed for the change in the law.

 

This thread is 2 years old but as far as I know nothings changed since then.

http://www.stillsmart.co.uk/forum/topic.php?id=4

It only covers distilling, which also includes distilation by freezing and removing the water, so its illegal to put wine in the freezer.

It doesn't cover fermentation (did you know it was illegal to brew your own beer before the budget of 1960?)

I'm sipping at a glass of blackcurrant vodka right now. Its about 26 to 28%abv ( the vinometer is not accurate above 20%.

It has trails running up the glass like a brandy would do due to the alcohol content.

Have taken a pic, will post it in a min, don't know if it will have captured what i'm on about though.[hr]


You can just see the effect i'm on about by looking at the shadow on the wall behind, its like the spirit in it crawls up the glass a bit. You've probably seen the effect in a big brandy glass.

But what i'm on about is that this comes out like a spirit with a dash of mixer strength. I used to drink rum and coke as a nightcap but I don't need that now i've brewed this. This costs 35 New pence a bottle (7/- For armandii :D)

If the government would lay off their stupid can't distill this without a stupid licence law then we could all be making our own petrol & getting this country back into production without relying on Cornel Blooming Gadaffis oil.

 

Good stuff. I wonder what would happen if, for example, Revenue and Customs were to raid a school chemistry lab. Maybe I should have paid duty on the teaspoon of orange gin I made using a half decayed orange, an arrangement of flasks and pipes, and a bunsen burner

 

:D

bet that went down good at breaktime.

Schools need to get licenses for their (think it was liebzig) condensers. They are very good for distilling. Don't think you can even buy one without a licence.

 

I see some bright spark in government, (Alan Duncan), has made a statement to the effect that the £2.00 litre is on the way.

So good ole George Osy has responded by saying he "might" not put the extra 1p on fuel duty in April that was planned by the previous government.

So that's saved the day then, and all will be fine and dandy.

Until government realise the whole country revolves around fuel, not just oil but gas also, (the price of which I think is tied to oil), and it is their fuel tax that is crippling the country, I cant see any light at the end of the tunnel.

Why should the government gain more money in tax because of trouble in the middle east.
Fuel tax should be a set amount per litre and not a percentage.

 

Exactly Pete

Because of this ridiculose system of working, we all need fuel to get to work. If we can't afford fuel then we can't get to work & what will that do to the economy.

If we were allowed to make our own petrol (Like the Americans can already) Then we could get to work, make some money & then inject that back into the economy.

Stitching up homemade petrol production smacks of guilds to me. Who the hell do they think they are telling people what they can make themselves?

They are elected representatives, not dictators or monarchs. Its a hell of a dangerous power/precident to set. If they can stop you making a particular thing, what is to stop them banning growing your own food because the supermarkets are loosing out on profit, or baking your own bread for the same reason.

If you think that sounds far fetched, like I mentioned before, you could be fined and/or imprisoned for brewing your own beer.[hr]

Rant over, wait till I try the "Rum"