No Increase in Cost of Motoring Despite Petrol Rises

Interesting sense of timing by the Daily Mail with this report:

Gordon Brown wants to see petrol-driven cars off the roads within 12 years as evidence that Britain can break its addiction to oil.

The driving force to achieve that goal, he suggested, would be fuel costs and road taxes.

But the argument that soaring oil prices could benefit drivers in the long term appeared a high-risk strategy at a time when motorists are suffering like never before.

Mr Brown also risked further alienating drivers with a robust defence of higher road tax charges for vehicles with higher emissions - and zero rates for cleaner cars.

Mr Brown added that he would like to see petrol prices drop to 'a reasonable level', but the AA warned his comments could bring a backlash from drivers.

'Motorists are already suffering from very high prices. This just piles on the pain,' said spokesman Paul Watters.

Compare and contrast this with a report released by the RAC, a rival motoring association to the AA:

The cost of motoring has fallen by 18% in real terms over the past 20 years, despite the price of fuel rising by 210% in that time, an RAC report says.

The motoring group takes inflation into account and says cars are now cheaper overall and need less money spent on them than they did two decades ago.

But 60% of 1,116 people surveyed actually thought higher costs were the biggest change in motoring since 1988.

Little surprise that 60% of people thought costs were higher when you take into account the messages coming from the media. Surely the Mail's report is just sheer coincidence, coming on the day that it was revealed that the cost of motoring has come down, isn't it?