How have rising fuel prices changed your behaviour?

Just wondering.

For me, it's the acquisition of a 50cc scooter for short urban trips
(shops, etc) where I might have taken the car. It's kept under a cover
down the side of the house so it's easily accessible: sometimes it takes
a while to get a bike out of the garage. And I don't like using a
four-stroke motorcycle for trips of under a few miles.

It's setting the cruise control on the car, if I'm using it to get to
work, to 65mph. I don't seem to get there any slower, and there's a 10%
inprovement on mpg compared with 70+. As my commute is 40 miles each
way, that's a difference.

In the home, it's getting the kids to turn off unnecessary lights and
put computers to sleep rather than just leave them running.I can't
believe how much our electricity bills have risen in the last couple of
years.

And the rest of ukrm?

 

I've found somewhere that flogs Biodiesel and fill up the Citroen on it. 99p
a litre is a hell of a lot better than the local diesel prices...

And yes, I know, I can do 2500 litres myself a year etc. but who really
wants to be doing that?

 

Yup, 2% inflation is a load of bollocks. I have seen petrol go up by 25%
in a year, gas and leccy are higher than even a year go, and my
supermarket trolley is up too - last year I was buying a (small) trolley
load of good branded stuff for about £60, now it's well over £70 for
more or less the same load, but using pikey products. Most noticeable is
the cost of fresh grub, fruit is frightening, and no wonder we are
becoming a nation of fatsos.

But yes, driving has changed, I sit at 60-65mph on a cruise now, and try
to arrange my journeys to take in as many jobs as possible. It can add
another 40-50 miles on a long journey just by driving more carefully,
and it might add another 30 minutes to my journey down south.

 

No change at all here, other than saving money off fuel coupons for
Katie.

 

Less 'fun' trips in the car. Don't visit out of town friends half as
often as I did a couple of years ago, I feel bad about it but unless I'm
in the area I can't justify spending £45 quid on a trip that cost £30
not that long ago.

The tree-huggers appear to be winning, they'll have us all living like
Luddites soon enough. Bastards.

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, The Older

I spend more on petrol.

That's it.

 

I've just returned from Gloucestershire with a Merc 230TE.

 

Ding

And energy saving lightbulbs, turning off un-needed shit. That's nothing
to do with the cost, it's just the environmental thing.

--
Catman MIB#14 SKoGA#6 TEAR#4 BOTAFOF#38 Apostle#21 COSOC#3
Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright (Remove rust to reply)
116 Giulietta 3.0l Sprint 1.7 145 2.0 Cloverleaf 156 V6 2.5 S2
Triumph Sprint ST 1050: It's blue, see.
www.cuore-sportivo.co.uk

 

(The Older Gentleman) wrote in

The escalating cost of commuting 36 miles each way to work was a factor in
a recent job change. Down to 6 miles each way now. Although, the extra time
in bed has a greater weighting.

I make the sprog get the train from Portsmouth to S Wales now. £20 for a
return journey is better than £50 in petrol and over a tenner on bridge
tolls. Again the time factor has a big weighting too.

 

The only difference it's making to me is I'm getting a load more
nectar points than before.

Rising fuel costs certainly haven't changed how I ride my bikes and
the difference in fuel consumption will never be a factor in how I
decide which bike to use for which journey.

 

Not my bigger bikes, either: the 400, Duke and BMW.

Outside town, no. In town, yes.

 

In town I'd use the KTM but the fuel consumption just wouldn't enter
the equation.

The K100 is a big heavy piece of shit, the 10R puts a lot of weight on
your wrists if you're riding it in slow moving traffic whereas the KTM
is light and the riding position is ideal for weaving around in
traffic without leaving you with any aches or pains.

 

A little, but not drastically.

I use a pushbike or walk. I quite deliberately bought a house that
was within comfortable walking distance of both the town centre and
some local shops.

Very similar. Although I don't have cruise control I do tend to sit
there at 70 rather than 80-55. Partly licence preservation (I commute
on the M42 and M5), partly fuel economy. I can make my car return
38mpg doing this, over 80 and it drops to under 30 mpg. Over a weeks
commuting of 350-400 miles it makes a difference.

I'll even be changing the car next year to a diesel, assuming I can
find one that performs the same as my current one but gives enough of
a higher mpg to balance out the extra cost of diesel over unleaded.

My Dad ingrained these habits on me as a kid so I always turn off
lights etc. I've got a bit more fanatical about it recently, and all
the lights are now energy efficient bulbs.

 

Am I reading that right? You only get 150 miles out of a tank and it
then costs in the order of £20?!

I fill the Sprint up every day. 120 miles, between and £11.00 and £12.00

Is your Tiger screwed?


--
Catman MIB#14 SKoGA#6 TEAR#4 BOTAFOF#38 Apostle#21 COSOC#3
Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright (Remove rust to reply)
116 Giulietta 3.0l Sprint 1.7 145 2.0 Cloverleaf 156 V6 2.5 S2
Triumph Sprint ST 1050: It's blue, see.
www.cuore-sportivo.co.uk

 

The scooter is perfect for short journeys, when anything bigger woudn't
warm up and/or get off its idle jets.

The SL125 is fine for longer urban trips: more poke, as nimble as ****,
and just as economical (100+mpg).

The Ducati and BMW just don't get used for town trips. Not at all.

 

On Sat, 22 Mar 2008 18:08:34 +0000, Wicked Uncle Nigel

Mmm well, the price of diesel this week made me wince. I could have
gone away this weekend but decided not to - then again, if I'd been
that into the idea I probably would have gone anyway.

Planning to get my pushbike serviced but then again, I was going to do
that anyway come the spring as I was told it would help my shins of
glass.

I suppose I've changed towards food but I think that there are other
factors behind like that, like finding it easier to plan meals that
can be also saved for the following day, like chilli. And I've stopped
answering the phone if I'm cooking or eating - that wastes a lot less
*and* cuts down on the amount of plasters and burn salve I use!

 

(The Older Gentleman) wrote in message

Sometimes I'll use a smaller car than the beemer to run to the shops but
apart from that, no difference at all.

With electricity I changed my supplier.

Looking at your 50cc scooter. How much did it cost and how many miles a
year will you do on it? How much will it save? How many months/years
will it take to pay back?

 

I'm taking a more strategic approach. I use as much fuel as possible (gas,
electricity, petrol) in the hope that global warming will accelerate and
wipe out a large portion of the worlds population thereby reducing fuel
consumption in the long run

Hth

 

I wonder how much juice these use on standby. Our V+ box (the cable
equivalent) goes onto standby when not in use, but is still noisy.
The only way to turn it off is to switch it off at the wall, and I'm
not getting round there every night.

These don't use much at all on standby. My FOAD plasma consumes 1
singular watt on standby - and again, I'd have to get under and behind
it to turn it off at the socket and that isn't going to happen.

Depending on their age, these can make your meter spin quite well (in
the order of 60-100W on standby, the same as a decent light bulb), and
the effort involved in pressing the button on the set rather than the
button on the remote makes the saving worthwhile to me.

Fuckall, in the real world. Adding up the consumption of the
flourescent displays on such stuff (like a candlepower a decade),
especially against the grief of resetting the flashy clocks makes it
not worth the effort.

 

I haven't been out for a 'ride for the joy of it' for quite some time,
and can't see that changing in the future.