I just paid my car tax using the all new direc-gov website to make it easier for Gordon Brown to rob us electronically. 12 months road tax on my Nissan Primera cost me £190. Ouch!Entering it in my accounts, I see that last year it cost £155. That's an increase of 22.5%. To put you in the picture if you live in America, £190 is $372 at today's exchange rate. The road tax is just to keep the car legally on the road - insurance, tax on petrol, tax on the cost of the car are all extra to this.
(BTW - how much is a litre of ordinary unleaded petrol (sorry - "gas") in the US?)
23 comments:
Ah the joys of having a Vauxhall Corsa 1.2 lol - a very basic model. Just £125 for me.
On the other hand living in a rural parish I use the car a great deal, and with petrol at 88p a litre...
fr paul harrison
OIC - they've done that now, have they? Hmmm. Every week I drive round the motorway for an hour and a half to Wonersh. Makes a difference having a larger car - even if it is quite old. Perhaps I'll have to investigate this one and see if I can get some sporty number that is smaller. Good excuse!
... and I'm sure that I pay more than 88p a litre - I never bother to check: it makes me weep to have to pay £40 to fill the car up...
Gas (petrol) prices in the US? I live in Saint Louis, Missouri and paid $2.16 per gallon yesterday. In Missouri we have an annual "personal property tax" on vehicles. The tax has to be paid by December 31. The tax is based on the value of the vehicle.
Try a 50cc Honda moped Fr Tim. It's amazing 2-stroke engine allows you to 'water down' the petrol with old chip fat/oil. And should it run out of fuel en route to Wonersh, you can pedal the thing and stay fit! Those Japanese - they think of everything.
No - I wouldn't ride one either!!!
I'm paying about $2.25 a (US) gallon... which by today's conversion comes out to 30p a litre.
"(BTW - how much is a litre of ordinary unleaded petrol (sorry - "gas") in the US?)"
How many litres in a gallon?
After reaching over $3 per gallon (nearly $4 in some parts of the country) over the summer, the price has settled to somewhere between $2 and $2.30 per gallon (at least where I live - I can't speak for other parts of the country).
Still less than what y'all pay, but significantly more than what we're used to paying over here.
Father, here in suburban New Orleans, a liter of regular unleaded gasoline goes for about $0.55.
I'm not about to do metric and monetary conversions at the same time. However, in my part of New York State, unleaded gas is running about US$2.40/gallon (US gallon, not Imperial gallon), while in New Jersey, it's about $2.05 a gallon. There's a lower gas tax in New Jersey.
There's no car tax in New York. The biennial registration fee in New York is $37.50. You also have to have a yearly safety inspection (which includes a pollution exhaust check), which is $37, pass or fail. If you pass, you get your sticker and are good for another year; if you fail, you have to get whatever needs fixing, fixed, then inspected again for a further $37. This is the equivalent of what in other countries (NZ for example) is called a "warrant of fitness."
Hey, Fr, what's a 'litre'? Is that more or less than a gallon?
I used to ride a 90cc Honda to Wonersh and graduated to a 125cc CZ. That was in the days before the M25. It was enjoyable passing all the traffic backed up on the A25.
Guys, just think of a "2-liter" bottle of Coke and half it to imagine what a liter is.
;)
Father,
Gas here is significantly lower than in the UK.
In Chicago, it's about $2.55 a gallon for the cheap stuff.
Do y'all have "2-gallon" bottles of Coke?
:)
Thanks, all you guys. Please don't rub it in any more (sob). "A litre of water's a pint and three quarters" is a good rule of thumb. Exact figure is 3.78 litres to the US Gallon. So if you're paying $2.30, that's 60p per litre. Yes, even though it seems "expensive" to you - we are paying half as much again!
Safety inspection as per Patrick in New York: yes, we have that as well (it's called the MOT test). Current fee for a car is £50.35 - $98 US.
Just to make you even more happy, cheapest quote for my insurance - me alone driving, umpteen years' no-claims bonus, no accidents or convictions, 5 years old car: £306.60 or $598 US.
Right, I'm off to do a Basil Fawlty and thrash my car for being so expensive to run.
BTW - all this "litre" stuff is part of EU political correctness. Instead of using sensible real world measurements like a yard or a pint or a gallon, we now have to use the system invented by Napoleon. But the road distances and speeds are still measured in miles and miles per hour. It's a mess. So if we did have a 2 gallon bottle of coke, it would be a 7.5 litre bottle.
Blimey! do you guys really drink that much coke? I wouldn't sleep for 3 days after that much :-)
Don't forget that an American pint is smaller than an Imperial pint. :)
I can make it worse if you like... :-) On my scooter i get 100 km to the gallon... what's that... like 26k to the litre. The truck, not so much, but I like the scooter more.
I don't think a litre is any more or less natural than a gallon, btw, regardless of who invented it. Which dead king's foot makes more or less sense than which wave length of light? Eh... Just so long as we all know what we're talking about.
Father,
You know what they say...
"American champagne"...
Personally, I'm a sweet tea fan. Or, as they call it in my native Southern tongue, 'swait tay.'
I used the US liquid gallon for the conversion - I never knew they were different until the other day.
Also never knew the phrse "American Champagne" - that's a good one! Sweet tea - milk and two sugars - is called in the Army "NATO Standard".
Fr.,
Actually, swait tay is served iced, with no cream - just brewed, sugar is added while it's hot, so it dissolves, then the tea is chilled. Pour over ice.
Voila!
(Also, when I was a kid, Miller Beer's ad campaign was "The Champagne of Beers." Riiiight.)
OIC - iced tea. I got used to that in Rome where it was "Thé Freddo" and sold in cans.
Talking of champagne and beer, there is "Black Velvet" which is often drunk on St Patrick's Day - Guinness and Champagne. Not tried it myself.
Oh. my. word.
I love Guinness.
I love Champagne.
That sounds repulsive.
A friend of a friend was invited to a post-canonization celebration lunch in the Vatican during the days of Pope John Paul II, and was unpleasantly surprised to find the food was mostly cuts of cold meat, and was only cheered up on seeing what was on the menu to drink. He read 'American Champagne'. Hoping for something light, dry and sparkling from California, he got…… Well, it sparkled, anyway.
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