lee wrote on Sep 30
th, 2026 at 12:52pm:
Fuel costs are relatively inelastic. People have to buy. therefore cost is not the highest priority.
Basically, you don't think like someone on a low income.
Transportation for people like me is a matter of need. Otherwise, I walk where I want to go. When I went on leave, my car sat in my garage 6 out of the 7 days of the week. I only had to refuel my car once in the week just before I went back to work.
People on a middle income or better seem to use their cars as if they are mobility scooters. Too lazy to walk a kilometre down the road to buy their bottle of milk and bread and walk back, it seems.
Right now, I am listening to lunchtime traffic seemingly endlessly parading down the highway. And then there are the screeches of braking trucks. It was only a year ago that I saw how bad were the morning and afternoon traffic. It took 20 minutes to drive 10 km over town to my training session. One afternoon, I was driving back to the northside of town from TAFE. Traffic backed up and people sitting at lights that stay green for about 15 seconds.
I remember in highschool, it was common for students to ride their bikes to school. But you don't see that all that often, these days. Mum has to drop them off to the school gates instead of biking the 2km to the school.
Face it, people are too well off to be complaining about fuel prices. We had a cut of the excise earlier in the year. I doubt any government wants to spoil their population with low fuel prices and no tax revenue coming in. Learn to cope with high petrol prices by cutting your unnnecessary vehicle usage.