...You bought a litre of petrol and then insisted on your 0.1p change? Maybe you would have a case for making them round the price down.
And why is petrol charged in units of currency that don't even exist? Nothing else is.
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And why is petrol charged in units of currency that don't even exist?>>
Another stealth tax on the motorist...:-)
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What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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...You bought a litre of petrol
I thought all pumps had a "minium delivery 2 litres" sticker on them?
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>> ...You bought a litre of petrol I thought all pumps had a "minium delivery 2 litres" sticker on them?
Even better. Now I want 0.2p change.
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>>You bought a litre of petrol and then insisted on your 0.1p change?
The definition of legal tender is an amount and type of payment which MUST be accepted in settlement of a debt. i.e. I may accept two cows in payment for the petrol I sold you id I wish to, that is a matter for me - but by law I must accept the appropriate amount in appropriate coins and notes. There are limits, for example you can't pay a tenner in coppers.
Within all of that is the fact that only the correct amount is legal tender. I do not have to accept an amount which is larger than that in payment and I do not have to give you change. Although I probably woul have to return the note you did pay with and have you settle a debt in another way.
Interestingly according to the law when I studied, when you buy petrol in a self-service garage you are incurring a civil debt. Consequently you don't break the law by not paying provided that you didn't intend not to pay beforehand. Similar in restaurants. Of course, you can be pursued for the money, but not by the police - Unless the law has changed since I studied, which it might have done.
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>>You bought a litre of petrol and then insisted on your 0.1p change? The definition of legal tender is an amount and type of payment which MUST be accepted in settlement of a debt.
farthings were legal tender up to the value of half a crown. For those unfamiliar with proper money, that means 90 of the things, about the same size as a modern 1p coin. As an evil adolescent in Plymouth in lower middle fifties, I along with others used to collect farthings to annoy bus conductors with. It really worked too, let me tell you.
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Can't you educate the swear filter a bit DD?
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>Can't you educate the swear filter a bit DD?
You should see what it makes of the town halfway from Grimsby to Doncaster!
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>>I along with others used to collect farthings to annoy bus conductors with
90 of the things ? I thought you'd have more like 120 ? 4 per d, 12d per shilling, 2 and half shillings for half a crown - 4x 12 x2.5 = 120 ??
And since the bus fare for me into town was 2d, then even that was only 8 farthings.
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You're a great mathematician I have to say FM2R.
Quite right, 120.
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...You bought a litre of petrol and then insisted on your 0.1p change?
Most petrol stations keep a supply of 1p coins hacksawed into 10 pieces in readiness for awkward customers like you! ;-)
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L\'escargot.
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If you notice, on the pumps as the figures whizz up, it never shows the .01 etc.
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I seem to recall the price displayed on the pump is in pounds and pence only, not in decimals. So you never incurr a bill that requires .1 or .2p change.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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I seem to recall the price displayed on the pump is in pounds and pence only ...........
It's nice to see them correctly called pence for once and not peas.
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L\'escargot.
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TVM is correct, you can only purchase to the nearest penny so if a litre is 89.9p you would purchase 90p worth or 1.00112346 ltr of fuel.
Are we a bunch of pedants or what!
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In truth, fuel has always been "bought" by price not volume. In all my years driving noone has even said "stick in 35.5 litres" or " 10 gallons "
Its always been "Stick in a fivers worth" or "stick in 20 quids worth"
ye gods I can ever remember when 10 bobs worth (or half a knicker) in the bike tank would be enought to get you somewhere and back.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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ye gods I can ever remember when 10 bobs worth (or half a knicker) in the bike tank would be enought to get you somewhere and back.
It still would. :)
MTC
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Actually when petrol stations were not self-service (and I worked in one) it was quite common for people to ask by volume. Especially older folks and people on motorbikes.
With cars ti could be quite catastrophic given the difference in money between £2 and 2 Gallons (at about 45p per gallon).
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Perhaps in the countree (queue Banjo music) it may have been. But in essex when all my family (queue cheerful cockerknee chimney sweeps music from mary poppins) it was always done by "money", as it was when I worked in a filling station. The only exception was the lambo when it was done by calibrated eyeball peering into the tank and sloshing it around.
Lambo - the scooter not the car.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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I have always bought petrol by the quantity it takes to fill the tank. It has never occured to me to use any other measure.
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Morrisons - 20 litres, anywhere else £20. Why? Morrisons give points per whole litre!
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I have always bought petrol by the quantity it takes to fill the tank. It has never occured to me to use any other measure.
Same here! Long before self-service became the norm, I always asked, like yourself, for my petrol to be dispensed by quantitiy and not by how much money I had on my wallet. However, I do know of people who fill their tanks based on how much, in terms of £'s and Pence, they wish to add. In any case I always have brimmed my tank full and only stop adding petrol when the automatic cut out first comes into action.
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The only time I have ever purchased fuel in anything other than what it takes to fill the tank up (ie "fill 'er up, please) is when the car was a pool or rental car to be returned with gauge at the same level as when I started.
Whether I have a full tank or half a tank of fuel in my own car has never made a difference to the length or number of journeys I take, even in my relative pauper days after college; It's down to self control, and I would think before I made the drive, knowing that what I burned needed to be replaced. Having taken the hit once to fill the tank initially, all buying by self imposed and arbitary price or volume cap thereafter would serve to do is increase the frequency of fuel station visit.
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I always brim it up too but the other day I was on fumes and wanted to get to my favorite garage so I had to do a splash and dash at another station and stick 50zl worth in. The Polish zloty is broken down into groszy each worth about a tenth of a penny. The digit counters run so fast it was quite a challenge to get to stop all zeros up but I managed it.
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By going slower and slower and causing annoyance to the gang of hooligans in the old Lada with the blocked idle jet and nonfunctioning starter just behind you BBD? Mmmmm, nice.
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>>even in my relative pauper days after college; It's down to self control, and I would think before I made the drive, knowing that what I burned needed to be replaced.
Blimey, you were a lot more grown up than me then. I was known to put in sums like 47p if that was what I reckoned I could get away with between where I was and the particular female I wanted to visit. I guess you never ran out of fuel either, I did. A lot.
It wasn't neccessarily an self imposed limit as such, more that was all the money I had between that point and the next influx of cash, so it was that or nothing - and talk about stress, try balancing the cost of half a pint, the cost of 10 fags and the cost of 1/2 gallon of fuel ! Which was about the going requirements for visiting my girlfriend of the time (Hi Sally!). Total; ingredient requirement - about £1.50, total available - about £1.23. It lent for blind optimism, a lot of scrounging, and frequent walks home without the car.
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p.s. on which subject if anybody lives in Leeds and knows a guy called Ray Wallum (unusual name) please point him my way - he shared many a cigarette, half pint and walk home with me and we lost touch years ago.
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... in Leeds and knows a guy called Ray Wallum
obviously you have tried google or 192.com or 118118.co.uk for " ray wallum leeds" ?
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"get you somewhere and back"
Still does - like the end of the drive
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But can anybody explain why fuel companies are allowed to charge .9 of a penny, a unit of currency which doesn't exist?
If Tesco began stocking their shelves with loaves of bread priced at 2.9p a slice then rounded up by a penny at the checkout there would be an outcry.
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I think you will find that the minimum delivery for a fuel tanker is 2000 litres or so which is a nice round figure - luckily those nice people at the petrol station are prepared to allow the public to buy in smaller quantities, no doubt rubbing their hands in glee at the vast killing they make on rounding up all those fractions of a penny.
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Robin Reliant saidye gods I can ever remember when 10 bobs worth (or half a knicker) in the bike tank would be enought to get you somewhere and back.
When Mr Issigonis launched his Mini, 10 bobs worth was enough to half fill its 4.5 gallon tank.
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So 1p pieces (pennies) are still around in UK. Here in NZ they resized all the small coins last year, and took the opportunity to abolish the 5c piece. So the 10c piece (about 3.3p) is the smallest now. 1c and 2c coins and $1 and $2 notes went years ago. If you pay by card here, you pay to the nearest cent, but in cash the total is rounded up or down to the nearest 10c.
I can imagine the kerfuffle in UK if they tried to abolish 1p coins.
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Petrol should be charged by mass, not volume. On a hot day you get less hydrocarbons than on a cold day. This accounts for more than 1g/l and, therefore, more than 0.1p/l.
This has nothing to do with me designing mass flow meters for a living ;-)
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Why not pay by cheque?
£0.919 and let the bank make the decision
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Robin Reliant,
I think you'll find that gas and electricity units are sold in fractions of pence also, or they used to be when I last worked for a power company. Check your power bills. Its not just petrol.
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