We all like to drive (well, most of us do), there’s nothing quite like the freedom of the open road or the sense of fun when driving slightly faster than is legal on the motorway. Not that I would ever do that, you understand, someone else told me it was fun. And surely at some point or other in our lives we all wish we had the vast quantities of dosh required to purchase a hugely-engined supercar? Several times now I’ve looked down the back of the sofa to see if I can drum up the hundred or so grand I need for an Audi R8, but all I’ve found so far are a few odd socks and some biscuit crumbs. They wouldn’t even take those in Toys R Us for a toy version. Bloody capitalists.

Any love affair we may have had with driving, though, is coming to an end, thanks to its ever increasing cost. Sure, it’s still fun to have that open road freedom (like that ever really happens) but driving hits the wallet from all sides now. What you pay for your Road Fund Licence has changed for cars registered after March 2001, we used to all pay the same but now based on CO2 emissions you could be forking out a staggering £435 a year. OK, so very few cars belt out the 255+ g/km of CO2 that would incur such a high fee, but it’s still an awful lot. Car insurance premiums seem to be going up and up too and it must surely be the reason why, when you watch shows about Traffic Police (which I find strangely compelling), that so many of the people they stop are driving without tax, insurance or even driving licences. And they don’t even seem to care, there’s no remorse from them. They can’t afford it, or don’t see why they should pay it so they don’t. And because of people like that the price of car insurance goes up further still. Your classic vicious circle.

Worst of all, though, is that petrol prices are becoming prohibitively expensive. In my local Shell garage the price of unleaded petrol is currently 118.9p, almost as high as it’s ever been. I love my car, absolutely love it, but the fact that it’s a huge 2.9l petrol Volvo XC90 means that to fill it costs nigh on £80 and as we get little more than 20 miles to the gallon that £80 doesn’t go very far. It regularly makes me want to cry. It probably wouldn’t be so bad if we didn’t drive much but my sons live with their father near Aylesbury (if you want to know why go to www.squidpigeons.co.uk/porridge) and every fortnight we have to drive from Portsmouth to High Wycombe pick them up on a Friday afternoon and then back to Wycombe on a Sunday afternoon to take them back. The 10 miles the ex does must be a real chore. Don’t see him sobbing into his drainpipe jeans. Sniggering perhaps, definitely not sobbing. Petrol prices have been exorbitant for a while but what’s got me really riled this week are the announcements of BP and Shell’s profits for the first quarter of the year, $5.6 billion and $4.9 billion respectively. The last time forecourt prices were so high was in the summer of 2008 when the price of oil per barrel was $147. It’s now more like $80 a barrel so, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think their maths has gone a little awry. Even with the few pence added here and there to fuel duty it still doesn’t add up. Not even close.

Of course, the oil companies will argue that most of the cost paid on the forecourt in the UK comes from fuel duty, currently (I think) 57.19p per litre, not to mention VAT at 17.5%. By January duty will have risen by a further 1.76p. Fantastic. I wonder what the treasury actually do with the billions of pounds they make from it? It’s tempting to say “furnish second homes and buy duck houses” but I don’t think they do that any more… Are they investing this money into public transport? Doesn’t look like it, train journeys are hideously expensive and buses, in Portsmouth at least, are unreliable and also incredibly expensive. And does fuel duty have the desired effect? Does it make fewer people drive, share cars or take public transport? Not by the looks of it, there are now more cars on the road than ever. Unless there was a serious overhaul in public transport I doubt many people would give up the convenience of their cars, however much fuel costs. But the point to all this (I think I have a point somewhere) is that while there’s little we can do to change how much tax we pay on fuel, surely the petrol companies are taking the piss by keeping the forecourt price high while announcing massive profits, way above predicted levels? In fact MP Lindsay Hoyle said we’re being “legally mugged” by them. If an MP said it, it must be true. A boycott has been planned on facebook for May 1st, I’m not entirely sure of the details but I think the plan, unlike those of the past to boycott all petrol stations, is to boycott just one company. More details can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=307148262680