Ever since I passed my test at 17 I have enjoyed driving no end and that was 6 years ago now.

But I had a thought yesterday and I think the fun is slowly being 'taxed' out of driving.

Just now I'm driving a 1.0 Mk4 because I got it cheap.

Went to fill it up yesterday and it cost a mighty £60!!! £40 of which was probably tax.

Then it dawned on me, with fuel being so high it explained why the parts I had been buying lately to sort the initial problems on the Polo were so expensive, plus the increase in VAT.

Then on driving home, I got out onto the open road and hit a maximum speed of 55mph and did an average speed of about 40mph.

And that's not because the 1.0 is slow...its because I was in a constantly large line of traffic on a pretty straight national speed limit road. So I thought, either these people can't drive/scared to overtake or...they are driving so slow because like me they have just been raped at the pump and are trying to save fuel.

Then when I do eventually find a piece of road to myself I can't go that fast anyway because...even though I have paid my road tax which again has gone up and the government had a warning last year with bad snow, there are still huge potholes littered along the road.

So I think long are the days when it was sub £40 to fill a Polo and take it for a blast down a nice road. Safe in the knowledge that it will only cost £10-£15 to top up the tank and if anything goes wrong on the car its just a cheap visit to Autosave to buy parts.

Thoughts?

i've only been driving for just over a year and a lot of the fun has been taxed out even in the time i've been driving, insurance costs are crippling and rising, fuel is about 20p a litre more expensive than when i started as well as speed cameras and more and more police around to stop cars, it seems that if you are young and male (yes sexism laws have equalised insurance) you are targeted, everyone expects you to be a crap driver with no consideration for others but in reality there is only a select few that continously crash their cars and do illegal things and drive like twats.

having said that i do love going for a blat along small roads with my mates,

unless they introduce road pricing or speed cameras every 50 metres i will continue to enjoy myself occasionally on a country road

Completely agree, I've been driving 6 years now as well. I remember when fuel was 79p a litre lol!

Its impossible to find a road that isn't busy, watched by speed cameras, full of pot holes, or full of the worst people in the world- horse riders. You can see where the phrase 'Get off your high horse' comes from, the way they scowl down at you from their horse as it shits everywhere on the road like it owns the place

there is an answer to the horse issue though........

BULLBARS!!!!!!!

79p a litre!? thats not fair iv never paid less than a squid. iv been driving 3 years, because cars been of the road or between cars. but when i can i do still enjoy a good drive. very rare its a proper good drive, due to fuel costs, police scaving around (not a major issue but because its a modified car I'm more or a target), other road users (again not a major issue but more of a discouregment) you know the usual isuues.

but in answer to your question, yes i do still enjoy driving. i live driving down a long and loansome road at night listening to some phat tunes. usually only time i get to enjoy music is while i drive.

Who the Fuck do horse riders think they are? Who are they to give me a dirty look because i have a loud exhaust on my car? Mine and every other car on the road is paying for the roads their manky piece of burger meat is shitting all over.

If horse riders want to use our roads they should either pay road tax to help towards the clean up of the mess their animals make, or they should clean it up themselves and if they don't they should be fined like dog owners. They should also be thankful that thanks to the massive amount of money we pay to use the roads every year, they actually have a road network to ride their horses on.

Although ideally they should just be banned from using the roads, they are a danger to themselves and others... although some of the riders are hot

But yes the fun does seem to be being taxed out of driving although apparently fuel prices should tumble once the middle east settles down a bit. Most of those countries main export is oil so when they are looking to create more jobs to keep their people from revolting again, most of these jobs will be in the oil industry. In turn this will mean they have to produce more oil and the price should fall massively as the market becomes flooded. It could even be that the days of countries holding back oil to keep the prices high maybe nearing an end thanks to this, only time will tell I guess. All I know is I bet the government won't hang about in bringing in a fuel stabilize if the cost of fuel drops significantly like they did when it rose

i live driving down a long and loansome road at night listening to some phat tunes

was it the best song in the world? or was it just a tribute?

Edited 13 March, 201115 yr by McLOVIN

This thread is now a horse rant.

The hot riders should be allowed to stay, but the rest can fuck off!!

I cannot see petrol prices reducing this government as like the other are just driving motorist off the road whether its through taxation or through speed cameras etc etc .Where i live they have spent the last 6 months supposedly improving the roads in and around southend but made the whole thing worse with putting in traffic lights every 400 yrds .

Like all above i did enjoy driving but its all becoming more stressful and expensive .

dont have a problem with horses actually now you mention it guy i do yes they should pay to keep the roads to and should clean up after themselves

fuel,insurance,tax,mot all rising doesnt help but i refuse to let them arseholes in cityhall take away all my fun i fortunatly live in an area that has national speed roads going out of it and if you get on them at the right times you can have the road to yourself which is brilliant fun as for petrol prices they are getting scary high when i started driving petrol was 75.9p per litre

I still enjoy driving, especially in my dad's car, his fuel, and has more boost.

But they days of driving 100 miles per night, just for a drive are long gone. I think as soon as I get rid of my dog slow, boring diesel. And also find decent a better paying job the true love for driving will return.

That makes me sound like I've been driving forever, I haven't just over 1 and a half years.

Also, Horse rider's arses, nom.

fuel prices will never plummet, or even drop by more than 7p a litre. You have to remember the oil companies/governments way of dealing with oil, e.g: if something changes in the industry - raise the price

and the trouble is, that fuel pricing is like a ratchet system, in that it can always go up but very rarely slip down.

edit- just read an article that stated petrol is now worth more than its equivalent weight in gold

Fuel and parts pricing honestly doesn't bother me that much. I'm about £50 a week in fuel just now, used to be about £30, all I need to do to offset that is not go to the vending machine at work. Plus I hardly ever need to fix my cars lol, unlike the original poster. What bothers me is insurance. I may well earn more than the average person and my insurance is also less than the average person my age, but now my insurance payments are going to become a big part of my life. I've never paid more than £800 for insurance and I've had Mk2 Golf 16vs, 2.0 Astras, BMWs, etc yet when I go to renew my Mk2 GTI I'm struggling to find a quote less than £1100. I'm almost 22, got 3 points and 4 years no claims... My current insurance company can't even insure me on it!

I used to be able to go on confused and get an insurance quote for an E36 M3 for less than a grand, and I did see an M3 going very cheap not so long ago, it was tatty but I thought I'd snap it up for a bit of cheap fun. Alas, no!

fuel prices will never plummet, or even drop by more than 7p a litre. You have to remember the oil companies/governments way of dealing with oil, e.g: if something changes in the industry - raise the price

and the trouble is, that fuel pricing is like a ratchet system, in that it can always go up but very rarely slip down.

edit- just read an article that stated petrol is now worth more than its equivalent weight in gold

If you can go and get me 737 grams of gold for £1.29 then I will make you a millionaire, guaranteed. Specific weight of petrol is 737 kg/m3, so 737 g per litre.

edit- just read an article that stated petrol is now worth more than its equivalent weight in gold

1kg of Petrol = £1.86

1kg of Gold = £29,000

Maybe we are still getting a good deal on petrol haha!

it was read online so is obviously open to interpretation

What gets me is how an insurance company can turn around whilst you are currently insured with them and say that they can't renew your policy?

If you have more than 1 car in your household, have you tried getting a multicar quote from admiral? they saved me about £600 and both my parents saved over £100 each :)

it was read online so is obviously open to interpretation

that's quite a lot of interpretation tho

If you have more than 1 car in your household, have you tried getting a multicar quote from admiral? they saved me about £600 and both my parents saved over £100 each :)

what are they like with modded cars tho? i insure 2 cars through hic and seens as they are both modded i think it's pretty cheap, i can't see a non specialist beating them tbh... although i haven't had this years renewal quote yet so that may change

£1,100 for a valver!

I'll be looking to pay £1,200 on a twatting 1.3cdti.

Or £1,900 if i can pull another £3,000 out of nowhere, which i doubt it.

it was read online so is obviously open to interpretation

that's quite a lot of interpretation tho

If you have more than 1 car in your household, have you tried getting a multicar quote from admiral? they saved me about £600 and both my parents saved over £100 each :)

what are they like with modded cars tho? i insure 2 cars through hic and seens as they are both modded i think it's pretty cheap, i can't see a non specialist beating them tbh... although i haven't had this years renewal quote yet so that may change

I haven't tried it with modifications, although there is a pdf on their site which I think basically says that you are insured at no extra cost if you declare your mods, but if you have an accident, they will only replace car parts with standard items, like if you need work on the front end you will get a standard grille instead of a de-badged one for example.

They offer you the option to cover your modifications separately i think:

2. What is Covered?

This insurance provides compensation

for the cost of replacing lost or damaged

non standard parts or modifications

providing they have been declared on

your motor insurance Policy and have

been noted on your Policy Schedule as

modifications, as follows:

# Compensation up to £500 or

10% of the vehicle market value,

whichever is less

# Compensation for disability

modifications up to £2,500 or

15% of the vehicle market value,

whichever is less

# Only one claim in the Period of

Insurance can be made

But I wouldn't take my word for it as I am usually wrong

take a look here: http://www.admiral.com/policyDocs/ADAN44%2...S%20Booklet.pdf

i dont enjoy driving anymore, especially on student funds when i can barely afford to feed myself

I've been driving for just under 17 years now. I started out in the states and was paying less than $1 for a gallon.

I don't like this thread, it's depressing.

What I would really like to know is how the public years ago let the government at the time charge more in tax for petrol than the petrol was worth.

If you want about £1 worth of petrol, you need to pay an extra £3 for the privilege. And the government says it needs more money...

it was read online so is obviously open to interpretation

that's quite a lot of interpretation tho

If you have more than 1 car in your household, have you tried getting a multicar quote from admiral? they saved me about £600 and both my parents saved over £100 each :)

what are they like with modded cars tho? i insure 2 cars through hic and seens as they are both modded i think it's pretty cheap, i can't see a non specialist beating them tbh... although i haven't had this years renewal quote yet so that may change

They don't do engine conversions, only like for like engines changes, i.e. changing a 1.3gt engine for another 1.3gt.

I still enjoy driving most of the time, mainly when I'm using the mini and not stuck behind traffic or I'm offroading.

Insurance and fuel prices are crippling though but like everyone else I pay it cos I want the luxury of driving my own vehicle and need it to get to work.

What i find funny is we pay the highest taxation in the world.

Compared to other countries we pay alot more tax on fuel, food, cigarettes, council tax. Pretty much everything is

higher than other countries and yet they say that they're struggling and need more money?

Where is it all going?