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2008 Issues Archive
25 June 2008
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Q&A
You may have noticed. Or you may have been visiting relatives on Proxima Centauri. But if you’ve been on planet earth for the past few weeks you probably haven’t missed the news that oil price rises have fed through to the petrol and diesel pumps and the collapse of civilisation as we know it is nigh.
Well, maybe not civilisation in its entirety. But there’s a strong suspicion from our Q&A this time that some lifestyles may have to be amended in the light of fuel price rises.
For example, the route to work: we asked how many of our readers drive to work most days, and the answer we get back, from 474 respondents, is that 73% travel to work on most days by car. That’s probably not a surprise, as engineering tends not to be a city centre activity and is often located in places where public transport happens on alternate Tuesdays in one direction only.
In fact, there was a lot of additional comment about lack of alternatives and also, for several people, the need to combine the daily commute with dropping the kids off at school and similar domestic routines. There was also a sad story: one respondent had tried cycling to work, which worked fine until the bicycle saddle was stolen. Ah.
If cars are part of the normal routine, then maybe something could be done about using more fuel-efficient ones. We asked whether readers drove cars with engines of two litres or more capacity. It’s a large minority, 39%, who do, though that means, of course, that 60% are in smaller vehicles already (1% didn’t know, either because they didn’t own a car at all, or because the chauffeur deals with that kind of detail).
There are in some cases incentives to keep on driving, of course. For 31% of respondents, their employer provides either a car or a car allowance as part of the salary package, and several respondents pointed out that mobility was an essential part of their job.
Of course, we thought, even with all these incentives, engineers would probably be alert to the rising prices and would have modified their driving habits as costs soared, wouldn’t they? Er, no, they wouldn’t. Only 30% say they have changed their ways, and 70% have so far carried on regardless – perhaps, to be fair, through lack of alternatives.
There is a view in any case that maybe high fuel prices aren’t a bad thing because they will encourage the prudent use of limited resources. Did our readers have sympathy with this view? Perhaps surprisingly in view of the previous answer, they do: by 54% to 42%.
And that leads in neatly to the next question. When considering what to buy for their next car, will readers see fuel economy as an important consideration? Indeed they will, by 88% to just 9%. Among the small minority, several people said they did such low mileage each year they would prefer to have comfort and luxury rather than economy.
Somewhat fewer, though still a majority, would go for an electric vehicle or a hybrid for their personal use when next they change car: the numbers were 55% saying Yes and 39% saying No. Again, it’s the minority view that has most write-in comments, usually to the effect that on a well-to-wheels basis they were unconvinced by the arguments about environmental benefit.
The dramatic option, of course, is to try to do without a car, which some people manage anyway. With a little bit of inconvenience, was that possible for our readers? Well, a third of them think that Yes, it is possible, though degrees of inconvenience seemed in some cases to be rather more than minor. For 65% of the respondents, though, life without wheels is not conceivable.
So that’s how much we are in thrall to the motor car and does it make us happy? We asked whether readers expected the price of a litre of unleaded petrol to rise beyond £1.50 this year. Just over half, 51%, do and only 37% said No, prices wouldn’t get up this high. That left 12% uncertain, the highest Don’t Know in this survey. We are pretty much in uncharted territory with fuel costing this much.
The price could be cut at the pump a bit if the government were to reduce the tax component on every litre, of course. Should this be done to mitigate the impact of oil price rises? By 58% to 38% readers felt Yes, taxes should be cut – though several on both sides pointed out that a snide benefit of the high levels of UK taxation on fuel was that the percentage rises in prices here was actually less than it was in lower-tax economies, where pump prices have in some cases doubled.
Finally, we decided to get into the blame game. Who, out of a range of choices, was most responsible for the current high cost of fuel, we asked.
And from our range of choices, we get a range of answers. Top culprit, with 34% of the vote, is the growth in demand from countries such as China and India. Next, with 23%, are those City speculators who can probably afford petrol at any price and make money out of good times and bad. The government is blamed by 15%, which almost counts as a positive approval rating, while 13% thought the oil-producing states were responsible. Perhaps surprisingly, the oil companies are cited by only 7% and only a couple of people thought the drivers of gas-guzzling cars were at fault. And in the write-in section, the commonest comment was that we are all to blame.
Which is probably true. If not exactly helpful.
JP
© PE Publishing, 25 June 2008
