Phew, what an eventful week it has been in the world of fuel price campaigning. Let us bring you up to speed…

It began with national campaign group FairFuelUK, whose major sponsors are The Fuelcard Company, the Road Haulage Association, RAC and Freight Transport Association, attending a meeting on fuel duty issues with HM Revenue & Customs and Economic Secretary Chloe Smith MP.

Meanwhile, Chancellor George Osborne gave perhaps his strongest hint yet that he does NOT plan to cut fuel duty in the forthcoming Spring Budget. Speaking in an interview on Sky News, Osborne appeared to rule out any further fuel duty cuts, commenting that previous measures to tackle fuel duty have already made a difference.

But defeat is simply not an option for FairFuelUK. In fact, it cranked up its campaign several gears by giving a preview of a major report suggesting that a cut in fuel duty is exactly what this economy needs to get back on its feet.

The official figures in question are to be published this week by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) and suggest that a cut of 2.5p per litre would create 180,000 jobs in the first year at no net tax loss and boost GDP by 0.33 percent.  A ‘bolder’ 5ppl cut would create another 30,000 jobs. How can the Chancellor, despite his earlier words, NOT sit up and take notice of these figures?

National spokesman for FairFuelUK, Quentin Willson, said: “We’ve been saying this all along and now we can prove it.  This conclusively backs up our claim that a cut in fuel duty will boost the economy without harming Treasury revenues.  Quite rightly, the Chancellor’s priority is on stimulating growth in order to pay down the deficit.  Here is a way to do both.”

The Fuelcard Company’s sales and marketing director, Jakes de Kock, meanwhile, reminded motorists and the Government that “taxes and fuel duty currently account for 60 percent of unleaded petrol and 58 percent of diesel”.

“The plea for a fairer tax system for UK companies reliant on fuel to keep their businesses moving, is a worthy and necessary cause and impacts every consumer in the UK,” he said.

The Fuelcard Company will give its wholehearted support to FairFuelUK in the battle it faces over the coming weeks – what about you?

FairFuelUK will be conducting a major lobby of MPs outside the Houses of Parliament on 7 March (National FairFuel Day), giving a public stage to the fight for fairer fuel prices and fuel duty reforms. We will be involved in this public demonstration, as will hundreds of motorists and businesses struggling under the burden of soaring fuel prices.

To find out more about the campaign and to pledge your support (perhaps you even fancy a slice of the action?), visit: www.fairfueluk.com

What do four pints of milk, a pack of apples, 1kg potatoes, a box of Sugar Puffs and a litre of diesel have in common? They all cost £1.43. Yes, you heard correct, diesel is now a record 143p per litre. Madness! How are transport and fleet companies expected to survive with this ever increasing overhead?

We checked out the AA’s Monthly Fuel Price Report for January 2011 which showed the average diesel price at 132p per litre – that means we’ve seen a 12p per litre rise over the last twelve months. Ok, so you might not think 12p is a lot in the grand scheme of things, but consider the average size of vehicle fuel tanks:

• Average two-litre car holds approximately 80 litres of fuel per tank
• Transit LCV van – 150 litres of fuel per tank
• Sprinter van – 200 litres per tank
• Standard HGV – 250 litres per tank
• Double HGV – 480 litres per tank

That’s an increase of between £9.60 and £57.60 per tank, depending on your vehicle. Now consider the impact if you have a fleet of vehicles; it’s simply unsustainable. We spoke to David Allen, partner at C S Allen and Sons, who said: “I’m literally turning work away because I don’t want to spend money on fuel. It’s cheaper not to do some of the work because the cost of the fuel is so high. The way things are at the minute, customers are going to have to pay more for the service we provide or we’ll all be out of business.”

Unsurprisingly, a recent survey has shown drivers cite high fuel prices as the most annoying thing about motoring in Britain today. More than 40 percent of all motorists say soaring petrol or diesel prices annoy them the most, the research from breakdown cover provider Autonational Rescue found.

However, the bad news is that analysts are predicting this is only going to get worse after oil-rich Iran announced it was cutting exports at once to Britain and France in retaliation for EU sanctions over its nuclear programme. The cost of a barrel of crude hit an eight-month high of $121 earlier this week and motorists were warned pump prices could shoot up by 20p per litre within six weeks.

On top of this, the Government has planned a 14 pence a gallon rise in petrol and diesel tax in August. Our economy simply can’t sustain this and it would lead to surging unemployment, a return to recession, a growing deficit and years of economic misery. It could make us the next Greece.

Join The Fuelcard Company and FairFuelUK in our call for Chancellor George Osborne to cut fuel duty in next month’s Budget, and helps us show them a cut in fuel duty will create jobs, stimulate growth and generate extra tax revenue as a result.  In other words, it’s in the Government’s own interest to cut fuel taxes – even they will be better off!

For more details and to find out how you can help, visit www.fairfueluk.com

Worrying news for the fuel industry came this week in the shape of Petroplus, Europe’s largest independent oil refiner, announcing it is to file for insolvency.

As shares in Petroplus were suspended, so too were fuel supplies by the Coryton refinery in Essex, which is owned by the beleaguered oil giant. Unfortunately, it also supplies around 20 percent of London and the south east’s petrol. The question that springs to our mind is: what will the fall-out be, regionally and nationally, of one of the UK’s largest refineries stopping its taps?

Despite assurances from analysts and spokespeople that this shortfall will be made up for by other refineries in the south, this news will no doubt shake the industry and individual businesses already fighting to keep their heads above water.

And it’s not just national fuel supplies on the line. Coryton refinery directly employs about 500 staff and 350 contractors. Hundreds more Petroplus jobs elsewhere in the country are also at risk.

All in all, it’s been a bleak week for the oil industry. The EU has just approved sanctions to boycott fuel from Iran. And in the north of England, petrol supplies to Jet stations are under threat after fuel truck workers began a seven-day strike over pay and pensions  outside the ConocoPhillips-owned Humber oil refinery.

Peter Carroll of campaign group FairFuelUK, warned that petrol and diesel prices at the pumps could both pass £1.50 per litre “within days”.

“This could be the tipping point,” he told the Express. “The toxic combination of the situation with Iran, the Wincanton drivers’ strike and the Coryton refinery closure will be very dangerous.”

He also warned of further problems brought about by the “temptation to panic buy and profiteering”.

We don’t know about you, but all this has left us with a dreadful sinking feeling that the darkest days for the transport industry may indeed lie ahead…

To sign the national petition for fairer fuel prices, visit www.fairfueluk.com

This campaign has the backing of The Fuelcard Company, the Road Haulage Association, RAC and the Freight Transport Association.

So, this week ministers promised to cut the red-tape to allow councils more freedom to erect road signs where they are needed. This is great news, although long overdue. The Government has finally realised that the people who know the road network best are the local council workers who drive on it every day.

Under the new rules, councils will no longer need to gain the approval of Whitehall for new signs that they require on a regular basis, including those to warn lorry drivers of narrow roads.

Transport Minister, Norman Baker, said: “I am bringing an end to the ludicrous situation where councils have to come to central government for permission to put up signs they need to use.”

Anyone who’s driven an HGV in an unfamiliar town or city will breathe a sigh of relief as they will no doubt have experienced that unsettling feeling when the satellite navigation system tells you to ‘turn left’ down a narrow street. If you take the plunge and make the turn, there’s always the risk that the street will narrow further or worse turn into a dirt track. But then if you reject the advice of the technology system and go it alone there’s a chance you’ll get lost and find yourself in an even tighter corner. What a conundrum!

If councils have the power to erect road signs alerting fleet drivers to unsuitable roads the world will be a much better, less stressed-out place. And residents living on said dirt tracks will no longer have the misery of seeing enormous vehicles hurtling past their houses or have to direct confused drivers back to the main road.

The change in procedure is expected to take place from 30^th January 2012. What a great Christmas present for lorry drivers everywhere!

Avoiding potholes has become part of everyday life – just another thing to look out for on your way to work, along with cyclists and stray children. In fact I’d go as far as to say that swerving around potholes is an acquired skill, which has been honed over the past year as the number of potholes on our roads has multiplied. The size of the pothole determines the level of skill required. For a small hole, it’s about aiming your vehicle so the wheels straddle the crater. Hmmm, why do I feel like I’m writing a Jackie Collins novel? A larger hole is more demanding, requiring the driver to deftly swerve the vehicle without crossing into the oncoming lane of traffic, or if the hole is a real monster and cannot be avoided, approaching it with the right level of speed that avoids damaging your vehicle. This pothole business is tricky stuff!

So, we were not surprised this morning when the AA released the results of a study which found that the number of potholes on UK roads has increased and concluded that the UK is facing a pothole epidemic before the winter has even really begun. Its army of 1,000 ‘streetwatchers’ found an average of 12.9 potholes per neighborhood last year which has risen to 14.9 this year suggesting that local authorities have been overwhelmed by the problem.

Yorkshire, the North East and Scotland were among the areas worst affected by potholes, with an average of 19 in each neighborhood for the North East and Yorkshire and a whopping 20.1 in Scotland.

“The AA Streetwatch volunteers have once again shown that the UK has a pothole plague which has not gone away despite extra repairs this year,” said Edmund King, the AA’s president. “Highways authorities need to get to grips with the pothole problem, as compensation claims will soar when cold weather strikes and roads start breaking up again placing greater burdens on already strained budgets.”

The AA study coincides with an inquest into the death of 67-year-old Margaret Nicholl who was killed when she was thrown from her bike after hitting a deep pothole. What will it take for the Government to address this serious problem? Motorists are facing increasing repair bills as their suspension becomes damaged from bouncing in and out of potholes and for cyclists and motorcyclists, hitting a pothole can mean life or death. Let’s get this sorted out before another tragedy occurs.

We are generally a fairly cool and calm bunch here at The Fuelcard Company, however a report out today made us want to throw our lunchtime burrito out of the window. The TaxPayer’s Alliance has calculated that drivers are paying £18bn a year in ‘excess’ taxes which are not re-invested in roads or environmental measures. That’s an additional £293 per person every year – a significant amount when families are struggling to balance the books and juggle the cost of rising fuel and food prices with shrinking pay cheques!

What’s more, if these extra taxes are not being spent on fixing the crumbling road network or implementing much-needed congestion measures, what on earth are they being spent on? Extra turkey at Dave and Sam Cam’s Christmas party? We could take a small amount of comfort from the thought that the extortionate amount we pay in fuel duty was at least being put back into the road network to improve our journey to work every day, but the thought that it may be going into a different pot entirely just makes our blood boil.

As a result of their findings, the TaxPayers’ Alliance has called for the Government to lessen the burden caused by rising fuel prices on families and businesses, and quite rightly too. In the current economic climate, investing this £18billion in alleviating the pressure on motorists would be money well spent.

The Alliance report said: “Motoring taxes at their current rates cannot be justified by the need for spending on the roads and the contribution of road transport to climate change.”

The excess taxes vary by region due to local councils’ unequal spending on roads, according to the research which also reveals that drivers in urban, suburban and rural areas are taxed very differently. A driver in rural Essex is hit for £566 while their counterparts in the City of London ‘profit’ to the extent of £95 because they pay out less than is invested in their network. This difference is itself maddening because it is the rural drivers who have limited access to public transport and therefore rely on their cars more heavily.

Whatever the variation regionally, the fact is the motorist is not getting a fair deal. Excess taxation in a time of economic difficulty is daylight robbery. Our advice to the Government: cancel that extra Christmas turkey order Dave, before you have a motorists’ rampage on your hands.

Fuel duty: no one can deny it’s a hot topic! We’ve seen countless comments from industry leaders, our own Sales and Marketing Director Jakes de Kock included, urging the Government to abandon fuel duty rises and bring down the spiraling price of fuel to support the hard-pressed fleet industry. Sadly though, to no avail.

However, the recommendations of Sir James Mirrlees in his review of the UK tax system have cast the entire debate in a whole new light. Until now the industry has been focusing on reducing fuel duty, but what if it was scrapped all together and a system of congestion charging was put in its place, as the review suggested. Finally a system of taxation that tackles one of the biggest problems on UK roads – congestion.

Although many in the industry are still digesting this controversial idea, The Fuelcard Company’s Jakes de Kock has this week spoken out to support the recommendations, saying that replacing fuel duty with congestion charges could revive the fleet industry and boost economic growth.

He said a congestion charging scheme would be a much fairer system of taxation and would address the issue of growing congestion which is one of the biggest problems on UK roads.

“Levying tax from all drivers, whether they are ‘choosing to drive’ in their private lives or providing an essential service for the country by transporting goods and materials from place to place, is totally unfair,” he said. “A system of congestion charging would level the playing field and apply to all motorists travelling in a particularly busy area – likely to be in and around city centres – rather than being based on distance covered, as with fuel usage, which places a heavy burden on fleet companies.”

Whether the Government heeds the advice of Sir James Mirrlees remains to be seen. But for now, just having another option on the table is refreshing.

We’ve all heard about gas-guzzling vehicles. Well, it turns out drivers like a good guzzle too!

The next time someone tells you they munch on carrots and celery sticks when they’re peckish at the wheel, don’t be too quick to believe it. The potential links between driving and obesity have become shockingly clear in recent weeks, with two news stories in particular that caught our attention.

A survey by The Fuelcard Company has suggested a whopping 88 per cent of drivers eat mainly fast food and convenience snacks in their vehicles, in stark contrast to the one in ten who opt for fruit and healthy snacks. The poll also saw 26 per cent of motorists admit to eating while driving every day.

The implications this could have for obesity and heart disease could be very serious. No doubt about it, excessive snacking at the wheel is bad for you.

Not to mention potentially illegal. While not an offence in itself, eating while driving can significantly distract a driver, taking their attention off the road.  Police therefore are cracking down even further – motorists have been known to receive penalty points, and should eating at the wheel be found to be contributory factor in a road collision, the sentence could be much more serious.

The Fuelcard Company’s figures were released just after World Heart Day on 29th September, a national campaign to inform people around the globe that heart disease and stroke are the world’s leading cause of death, claiming 17.1 million lives each year. The annual day is also designed to highlight that at least 80 per cent of premature deaths from heart disease and stroke could be avoided if the main risk factors, tobacco, unhealthy diet and physical inactivity, are controlled. Long periods in the car make the latter two risk factors even more likely.

Further research this week showed the opposite end of the obesity-driving spectrum. Luxury car manufacturers have taken steps to adapt their vehicles to accommodate bigger people as the obesity problem has worsened over the years. BMW, Mercedes and Porsche are among the carmakers expanding the size of their models to cope with our expanding waist-lines!

So, if you don’t want to be among the group of people causing carmakers to increase the width of their vehicles so that people can actually fit in them, perhaps those carrots and celery sticks may not be such a bad idea. As long as they’re eaten before getting into your vehicle.

Congratulations to the cabbies who took part in Shell’s Smarter Cab Drivers Challenge and slashed their average fuel consumption by 20 percent each. If they continue to maintain this level of fuel consumption, they will save a whopping £1,500 over 12 months – that’s equivalent to 1,100 litres of fuel.

But how did they do this, we hear you ask? Did they have special fuel monitoring equipment fitted? Use specialist tyres? Or perhaps some other fancy gadgetry? Well, no, none of these – they simply drove smarter.

Each of the cabbies received training on fuel efficient driving techniques and put into practice some of the tips they’d learnt, including avoiding over-revving their engines, turning their air conditioning down or off and reducing the load carried in boots.

As we’re sure you’ll agree, none of this is rocket science, more like plain old common sense and certainly techniques we business drivers can easily introduce into our own driving. Simply slowing down a little and changing gears more slowly will not only reduce fuel usage but is also much safer

Don’t forget, the vehicle itself needs a little TLC. Dirty oil, clogged sparkplugs and under-inflated tyres can also increase fuel consumption, so ensure fleets are serviced regularly.

Shell went on to say that, based on the cabbies’ savings, Britain’s 34.1 million drivers could make a collective fuel saving of up to £18.5 billion if they applied similar smarter driving techniques. That’s certainly a saving we want to be part of!

Visit Business Fuelcards to see what products are on offer and access detailed information about the benefits available – it may just make all the difference!

BBC Panorama’s investigation into ’The Great British Fuel Robbery’ on Monday night strongly highlighted the plight of fleet business across the UK who are struggling with ever-rising fuel costs.

Disturbingly, a recent survey showed that last year 75 percent of business that declared insolvency during 2010/2011 cited fuel costs as the main reason. With fuel costs and taxes set to rise, this will surely only get worse.

The Fuelcard Company reported last month that, with fuel prices and taxes constantly rising, businesses are being forced to turn down work which results in the running of fewer fleets who are in turn employing less people.

Panorama suggested businesses are being forced to question their morality and weigh up keeping their business afloat against the implications of sourcing cheap, and mostly illegal, fuel.

The Fuelcard Company is reminding its customers about the legalities of using contraband fuel.  Red dye is for use only by farmers and building contractors for off-road vehicles. HM Customs has the right to stop and search any vehicle with those caught illegally using Red diesel liable for an on the spot £500 fine and possible confiscation of the vehicle.

Businesses, surely it’s not worth the risk?