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That is because we are not a socialist country, at least not yet. You pay such high prices because of the Taxes added on to make you suffer. In the USA Fed gas tax is 18.4 cents per gallon (4.86 ¢/L). In UK duty rate for the road fuels unleaded petrol, diesel, biodiesel and bioethanol is GB£0.5795 per litre (£2.63 per imperial gallon or £2.19 per U.S. gallon). For us silly Americans £2.19 per U.S. gallon converts to $3.53/gallon fuel road tax. So today I filled up for $2.98/gallon.
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MSEE, PE -
I would argue that we are a healthy combination of liberal socialism and conservative capitalism, we regularly swap between the two main political parties, generally giving each party two terms in office before we rotate them!
Those taxes we pay give every single person in this country universal health cover (we don't pay anything when we go to a public hospital and only $15 to see a GP) and keep our foreign debt ratio to GDP lower than any other OECD country. There are Americans here who tell horror stories about losing their savings and/or their homes to pay off medical debts because they did not have costly insurance.
Higher fuel prices are a small price to pay for what we get in return, higher fuel prices are a trigger for people to use public transport and for research into alternative energies in my opinion and make us think about purchasing fuel efficient cars. Is that a bad thing?
By the way, where I work in the desert, fuel is $2.50 per litre (diesel), I think that equates to approximately $11 a (imperial) gallon, in the city it is $1.35 per litre or about $6 a gallon.Comment
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