Half of families cut car use, driven off road by rising bills

SOARING fuel prices and the cost of living have forced more than half of Scots to use their vehicles less often and take shorter journeys, say researchers.

Fifty-four per cent of motorists think twice about taking to the road as the price of unleaded and diesel continues to rise, a survey found.

Thirty-three per cent said fuel prices had driven them to switch to other forms of transport for most journeys, Transport Scotland says.

The average price of petrol north of the Border has increased from 640.5p per gallon to 745.1p in the past year, according to the AA.

Meanwhile, the average price of diesel has soared from 659p per gallon to 851p, bringing the cost of filling up an average 13-gallon car to around £110.

In April, then UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak introduced a 5p per litre (22.7p per gallon) fuel duty cut to relieve price pressures on drivers. UK fuel duty rate is 52.95p per litre (£2.40 per gallon), among the highest across EU countries.

AA head of roads policy Jack Cousens said: ‘As bills continue to rise, people look for ways to cut back. With pump prices hurting drivers, especially diesel drivers, we’ve seen a reduction in car use. However, rather than traffic levels dropping away completely, people are linking two and three trips rather than making lots of smaller journeys.’

The price of crude oil crashed at the start of the Covid pandemic when worldwide demand plunged and exporters cut production.

Suppliers such as Saudi Arabia struggled to keep up supply when global demand recovered after the pandemic, which led to soaring prices at the pumps.

The Ukraine invasion in February also put strain on pump prices as Western sanctions and commitments to end Russian oil imports by this year put more pressure on other exporters to produce more oil. Meanwhile, nearly half of Scots (41 per cent) are now walking or ‘wheeling’ more than they were compared to before the pandemic, Transport Scotland’s public attitudes survey found.

Fears around Covid may have caused this change, with 41 per cent of Scots saying they are ‘concerned’ about catching the virus when travelling by bus.

The survey also found 30 per cent of Scots feared becoming infected with the virus on trains or in taxis.

Half of those quizzed admitted they were travelling less often by air than before the pandemic because of Covid anxiety.

The Transport Scotland study also shows 56 per cent of Scots have witnessed antisocial behaviour on public transport such as trains and subway trains.

A further 41 per cent heard ‘verbal abuse’, 26 per cent witnessed ‘drunken’ or ‘intimidating’ behaviour, 15 per cent heard ‘sexual verbal abuse’ and 14 per cent saw ‘physical abuse’.

The quango said the phone survey, conducted between September and October, was designed to help understand the ways in which Covid-19 has affected travel behaviour and ‘understand public attitudes on issues relevant to transport’.

‘Pump prices hurting drivers’