Thread: Diesel prices!

Very useful graph - it shows no marked effect from any single change except perhaps the steepening in the seventies as seat belts came in. What is noticeable is that almost all the improvement has happened before car manufacturers started thinking about safety. The remarkable thing is how low the figure has got on a per car basis, particularly if you bear in mind that average annual mileage has greatly increased in the last twenty years!

The gradual flattening of the curve is a strong indicator that any significant improvement is unlikely.

As far as the trauma rate declining in line with the fatality rate, this raises a major problem with statistics. A death is something that is readily defined, and has always been regarded seriously, and always recorded. When you start talking about injuries, it is almost impossible to have any confidence that the same level of injury is being considered, whether you are comparing Cairns and Melbourne today or Sydney today and ten years ago, let alone fifty years ago! You see figures talking about, for example, "deaths and serious injuries", but while deaths are well defined, injuries are not. This is why trends of road deaths are something you can be confident are real, although the numbers have now got so small that when talking about a small period of time (such as a long weekend) or a restricted area (such as a state) the variation is pretty meaningless.

John

Gents, figures on trauma are correlated and available, but I didn't go looking as I knew the measure was deaths per distance unit.

It's my opinion that road infrastructure is the area where significant progress could be made. Why the main connecting roads on the east coast aren't divided by slab of concrete is beyond me. This would make a significant difference.

I remember when I was involved in this stuff that the Americans tried many things but they found the most effective single measure was dividing the traffic by something solid. If you could stop them going off the side too that was a bonus.

I can drive for about 10 minutes and on the major road out of Brisbane see evidence of only a large ditch separating two directions of traffic. People act surprised when the odd car launches itself at the oncoming traffic.

Fixing this is expensive and it doesn't give any immediate pay back.

If there is a positive to rising fuel prices reduced vehicle km's should lead to some reductions in MV death. Instead they will die of TV overdoses.

EDIT: I apologise for my rant.

Originally Posted by waynep

There's growing pressure on the Govt to look at how the FBT tax is related to km. ( currently, the more kms you do per year, the lower your FBT tax rate )
There's thinking in some circles it should be the other way round given the emphasis on reducing greenhouse gases, conserving worlds resources blah blah blah ....
You have this ridiculous situation of people going on long trips close to 30 June for no real reason, just so they click over into a lower tax rate.
I think the basic concept of novated leases and salary sacrifice will remain. ( but who knows )

NOOOOO!

I do 45,000km a year. That's why the sacrifice is so good for me. I'm not in the salary range to make it good but do the distances that make it worth my while.

Originally Posted by Captain_Rightfoot

G.......

It's my opinion that road infrastructure is the area where significant progress could be made. Why the main connecting roads on the east coast aren't divided by slab of concrete is beyond me. This would make a significant difference.

.......

What opened my eyes to this was an article in the NRMA journal a few years ago - it reviewed progress on upgrades to the Pacific Highway over the previous year. In that period, the proportion of divided road had increased significantly, and over the same period the average speed limit had increased, with a fairly dramatic reduction both in fatalities and in accidents of all kinds. And a few pages further on there was an article asking readers for ideas to cut the road toll!

John

Dobbo's post on using a Fisher & Paykel Smart Drive motor led me here: Randy Burmeister - Project Kits & Model Plans Home Page

Interesting comparison of costs and the payback period (in USA) for a Toyota Prius vs a Toyota Echo.

So how long would it take to reclaim the cost difference for a more expensive hybrid automobile? At $1.40/gallon for gas and a $10,000 price difference: More than 1.12 million miles. That's a distance few people drive in the same car.

It would be interesting to apply his formula elsewhere, e.g. replacing an older V8 Land Rover with a modern 4-cyl economy car.

Just went down to the BP, to fill up the red Jaguar with LPG.

68 cents per litre which is high but not extreme.

Then I saw the diesel price!!

If I had false teeth I would have lost them!!
$1.72 per litre
Unbelievable

Originally Posted by RonMcGr

Just went down to the BP, to fill up the red Jaguar with LPG.

68 cents per litre which is high but not extreme.

Then I saw the diesel price!!

If I had false teeth I would have lost them!!
$1.72 per litre
Unbelievable

Yep, that's what I paid for diesel yesterday. If it keeps going we all might not be going off road as much.

I've got a 9000km trip to the Kimberley coming up. It's starting to look like I should have canned it and gone to Paris instead