[Carfreeliving] British motoring organization promotes bicycling

[Tom Radulovich]

The RAC tells motorists to get on their bikes as petrol costs spiral

Juliette Jowit, Heather Stewart and Gaby Hinsliff
Sunday September 11, 2005
Observer

'Get out of your car and take up cycling' has been the message of  
environmental groups for decades.
Now it has become the unlikely slogan of the RAC, one of Britain's  
leading motoring organisations and a friend of the driver for more  
than 100 years.
The RAC is issuing the advice to persuade drivers to save fuel as it  
warned that higher petrol prices are here to stay.
The RAC - better known for its opposition to 'attacks on motorists'  
like road charging and speed humps - says one in five car journeys is  
under 1.5 miles and therefore unnecessary.
'You could easily walk, cycle, take the bus, without putting yourself  
at any great hardship,' said Edmund King, executive director of the  
RAC Foundation, the organisation's policy wing.
The surprise advice came as protesters are threatening to mount  
blockades of fuel refineries this week in protest at the high duty on  
petrol, which is threatening to top £1a litre.
Yesterday, however, Chancellor Gordon Brown raised hopes for a cut in  
petrol duty to ease the pain of Britain's motorists, after he blocked  
a Europe-wide agreement against tax reductions to cushion the oil shock.
The Chancellor will also call this week for Britain to reduce its  
dependency on oil, switching to greener renewable energy instead.
At a meeting of the 25 European finance ministers in Manchester this  
weekend, Brown refused to endorse a promise by eurozone finance  
ministers not to take 'special tax measures to lower excise duties or  
VAT rates', as a response to surging prices.
After the meeting the Chancellor would not rule out reducing excise  
duty in Britain, saying 'any further announcements that we make are  
announcements in the pre-Budget Report'.
Later this year Brown is also expected to confirm the second  
successive annual freeze in fuel duty, but the Treasury is expected  
to bank a windfall of £1.5bn in extra VAT and tax on oil company  
profits as a result of the recent surge in prices.
Earlier in the week the Treasury dismissed calls for variable fuel  
duty - which would be cut if petrol went above a certain prices, or  
increased if it dropped much lower. 'We never rule things out; it's  
just not something I can see us bringing forward at the moment,' a  
spokesman told The Observer
Instead the finance ministers focused on increasing supply to try to  
ease the world oil shortages, blamed on disruptions caused by the war  
in Iraq and damage by Hurricane Katrina to operations in the Gulf of  
Mexico.
The EU is urging the major oil-producing regions of Russia, Norway  
and Opec to increase production, and member states called on oil  
companies to boost investment in oil exploration as well as  
alternative energy sources.
Sources said the events of the last two weeks had given 'a real  
impetus' to alternative energy. 'We have got to do something, so we  
are not so vulnerable to these shocks and in the longer term we are  
able to get things more stable,' said a senior Treasury source.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005



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