Traffic
Is it just me or is the traffic godawful so far this week? And is it just me or are the vast majority of problems caused by a small number of utter gimps? Will people have re-learned how to drive after the bank hols by next week? I hope so.
Fuel prices
Never mind those charts you see of the 'average' price of fuel; they are normally wrong for the vast majority of people as they give equal weight to little-used expensive petrol stations as they do to the heavily-used cheaper ones. What you want is a chart of actual prices paid, not prices posted on forecourt signs.
Here is such a chart. Each dot represents a tank of diesel put onto one of my business's (small) fleet of vans, and the lorry. I started collecting this data in april 2008, which is where the chart begins. The vast majority of the data points are at reasonably cheap stations around the midlands. There are a few outlying expensive points, mainly caused by someone running empty on a long trip and filling up at a motorway services.
I don't have any data for petrol I'm afraid, putting petrol in vans causes them to break down, so it's something we don't do.
Speed survey
This morning I noticed a pair of temporary speed survey tubes on the Lancaster Circus flyover in Birmingham, which had a 40mph limit for years and years which was recently cut to 30. I wonder what will happen when they (the council) get the survey results and find that the good people of Brum generally aren't keen on doing less than 40mph for no good reason, and the 85th percentile speed is more like 50mph?
Option 1: Increase the speed limit to the 85th percentile speed (85th percentile meaning 85% of people are slower than, and 15% faster) as is good historical speed limit practice, or:
Option 2: Say "bloody hell, everybody is speeding by a massive amount" and install some speed cameras.
Answers on a postcard please. I already feel I have an inkling as to what will happen 
Hi-vis jobsworth patrol
To cut a long story short, it's St Patrick's day today [edit: no it wasn't] , and much of Digbeth is closed off to allow the parade and related festivities to take place, as they have done every year in Birmingham.
Normally we residents of the surrounding area receive information about road closures etc, so we know what is happening and can make plans to accomodate. This year I received precisely fuck all.
Anyway, I had to visit my mother this morning, and returned home about 2:15. Every road in the vicinity of my flat is utterly clogged up with buses, taxis and cars; not helped by the many minicab drivers who attempt to cut the queues and end up blocking what little clear road remains when they try to get back in to the queue.
My flat (and the car park entrance) are within 50 yards of the somewhat generous road closures.
Last year I seem to remember residents being allowed through. Not this year.
A certian hi-vis vest wearing tosser seems to be taking great pleasure in his 'duties' of causing maximum inconvenience to everyone and wielding what little 'power' he has, or at least thinks he has; backed up with lots of authoritative sounding words like 'council' and 'police'. Apparently we're supposed to drive round hideously congested streets for hours, hoping to find a parking space somewhere nearby (clue: there's a festival on; there aren't any) and walk a mile or two home, then back again later to collect the car because he, THE ALL POWERFUL ROAD CLOSURE MAN OF JUSTICE, allows NO-ONE TO PASS!! I should "take it up with the council if I don't like it" (his words).
What I will say is this- fuck you, you utter waste of skin, oxygen and everyting else; you fuckpigs in yellow bibs (inspectors of various types, 'compliance officers' etc etc etc) are the one thing above all wrong with Britain today, and I know it's a terrible cliche but your backs will be first against then wall when the revolution comes. Fuck off and die.
N.b: I'm home now, thanks to a barricade nearby being unmanned and having blown down in the wind. The roads inside the cordon are of course deserted.
Fuel duty rise & the cost of motoring
On the 1st September UK fuel duty is to rise by £0.02/litre to £0.5619/litre (on both unleaded petrol and diesel). Currently, both fuels are available in the West Midlands for £1.029/l (US $6.28/US Gal) pump price. The final pump price includes VAT (currently temporarily cut to 15% from 17.5%), which is applied to the price including the fuel duty.
I'd like to take this opportunity to outline how this taxation adds up, over a year, for the typical car or lorry (semi-truck, for Americans).
Note: Today's GBP-USD exchange rate is $1.6266/£1. 1 UK gallon is 4.55 litres. 1 US gallon is 3.75 litres. All 'gallons' are UK gallons unless otherwise stated.
Cars:
I'll assume an 'average' car to be a 1.6 Ford Focus (petrol), which I am reliably informed achieves an average of 37mpg, and travels 12,000 miles per year.
Per year, this car will use 324 (UK) gallons of petrol, which at 4.55L/gallon comes to 1,476 litres. At 1.049p/litre (next week's price), this comes to £1,548.32 annual fuel cost ($2,518.50). The fuel duty (tax) alone comes to £829.36 ($1,349.04). The VAT (at 15%) is £201.95. The actual tax-free cost of the fuel is £517.01 (or 35p/litre, or $2.14/US Gal). Depending on which way you like to look at it, this means that 66% of the pump price is tax, or that fuel is taxed at a rate of 200%.
For those who prefer a per-mile figure, fuel comes to 12.9p/mile, fuel taxes are 8.5p/mile and untaxed fuel is 4.4p/mile.
Added to this is the annual Vehicle Excise Duty (commonly known as "road/car tax") which for this car is £150/year. This tax is levied, basically, on the official fuel consumption of the car (full details here) and for some cars (with the worst fuel economy) can be up to £405/year.
In total, running this car costs £1,181.31 in (fuel and road) tax alone, per year.
Lorries/trucks:
For these calculations, we'll assume a 40-tonne (gross) articulated lorry, travelling 60,000 miles per year at an economy of 10mpg.
Gross mass is the maximum combined mass of the vehicle and load combined. The 60,000 mile per year figure is from page 8 of this. 10mpg is an optimistic figure for a 40-tonne lorry, and is a fudge based on the economy of a lorry that I know very well. I have seen figures claiming average economies as low as 6.7mpg, but I'll assume 10, which makes the tax figures following lower than in reality.
At 10mpg this lorry will consume 6,000 gallons (27,300 litres) of diesel per year. At pump price, this comes to £28,637.70 /year. Of course, (most) businesses reclaim VAT so a more accurate figure is the VAT-free cost of £24,902.35/year. The fuel duty alone comes to £15,339.87 per year.
Do you want some per-mile figures as well? Pump prices: 47.7p/mile, VAT-free: 41.4p/mile, fuel duty only: 25.6p/mile, untaxed fuel: 15.8p/mile.
There is VED to pay as well, for this lorry it's £1,850 per year.
In total, in fuel tax and VED alone, this lorry costs £17,189.87 per year in tax.
For both vehicles, annual testing fees, maintenance and other costs are extra. The lorry costs do not include the cost of (and taxes on) the driver, depot, safety compliance, etc etc etc.