Driving costs how much?

A few days ago the Government-sponsored Office for National Statistics (ONS) published a huge, almost unreadable document that told us, among other things, how much we paid for sugar back in 1957 and what we spend on a bagful of the wretched stuff today.

Who cares? Nobody. Why? Because the quality of your life will not improve or deteriorate one jot just because sugar prices are moving up or down.

Motoring costs are a different matter, though. As is the price we pay to use trains and other modes of public transport. We're talking serious money here. Although we spend a huge chunk of our disposable incomes on housing costs, we arguably spend even more merely travelling from A-B. How much, exactly?

Well, according to the horribly complicated ONS figures which I've been wading though for days, the average weekly expenditure for all households in the purchase of a new car is - wait for it - £8.30. Sounds absurdly low to me.

The expert ONS statisticians go on to claim that the equivalent figure for buying petrol is £14.50 a week with engine oil costing another 10 pence and anti freeze plus battery water a further 10p. On that basis, we're left to assume that Mr and Mrs Average spend almost twice as much on fuel, lubricants and fluids as they do on buying a new car. That can't be right, can it?

Other "average" (their word, not mine) weekly costs include £7.90 for vehicle insurance, £2.75 for a tax disc, £5.80 for repairs/servicing/other work, £1.50 for spare parts and 30p for accessories and fittings. Parking fees, tolls and permits are claimed to be just 80p a week, garage rent/other costs/car washing 70p, and motoring organisation subscriptions 50p.

Can you relate to any of these official figures? How can any motorist possibly get away with spending just 10p a day on garaging, car washes and what ONS mysteriously describes as "other costs"? And I can't imagine there are many people who spend a whisker over £2 per day on petrol. I blow at least two quid an hour on the stuff.

Neither can I believe that that the same average household spends just £2.20 a week on rail and tube fares especially when you consider that a house or flat is typically occupied by several people. How far would they all get on a collective budget of £2.20 a week for overground and underground train travel?

The same average family allegedly spends just 1.30 a week on bus fares, an identical amount on taxis, 20p on water travel, £2.20 on planes and about 40p on other vehicles they hire. Again, these figures do not relate to real families living in real households in the real Britain where I live.

Why, I wonder, is the Government, aided and abetted by the ONS, claiming that motoring and public transport costs are so low when we know, through bitter experience, that they're not?

Mike Rutherford is a freelance writer, broadcaster and pro-car activist. Currently writing weekly columns for The Daily Telegraph and Auto Express, and monthly columns for The Independent and Motoring & Leisure, he also presented Pulling Power on ITV.

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