I was using some google magic and found this.
Petrol Prices
Since March 1983 I have kept a detailed record of fuel prices and fuel consumption, spanning fifteen different cars, both privately-owned and company. This table records the movement in fuel prices over that period, taking in each year the first fuel purchase in March. Prices are for leaded 4-star up to 1988, and unleaded thereafter. This roughly corresponds to the point when unleaded took over from 4-star as the standard fuel.
The table shows that the price of fuel in real terms is now 26% higher in March 2011 than in 1983, the oil price having risen steadily since March 2009, and the price also having been affected by the weakness of the pound against the dollar. The real terms price is by some way a record for the period covered, and is 89% higher than in 1991. During the period covered by the table, "real" fuel prices fell between 1983 and 1992, encouraging a boom in road traffic, but then rose sharply due to the "fuel duty escalator", resulting in the fuel protest of 2000. At this time, fuel prices had risen by over 50% in five years, which undoubtedly caused much hardship.
The table also does not show peak prices in my local area, which were 224.6p/gallon (49.4p/litre) in October 1990, following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and 390.5p/gallon (85.9p/litre) in June 2000, just before the fuel protest. Around this time I even paid 404.1p/gallon (88.9p/litre) in the Scottish Highlands. It seems that peak prices tend to occur in the autumn, and March, just as winter demand is tailing off, is often a low point in the year.
In 2005 there was a marked rise in the international price of oil, leading to a peak price of 426.9p/gallon (93.9p/litre) in September and October. Also since the beginning of March 2008 there was a further sharp spike in the international oil price, with unleaded reaching a startling peak in July of 540.5p/gallon (118.9p/litre). 2010 and 2011 have seen a further steady increase in the oil price, added to which the VAT rate was increased from 17.5% to 20% from the beginning of 2011, so this year all previous price records have been broken.
Of the March 2011 price of 129.9p/litre, 80.6p or 62.9% went to the government (58.95p fuel duty and 21.65p VAT). The rate of duty was reduced by 1p per litre in the Budget on 23 March 2011, but any benefit from this has been cancelled out by further oil price rises.
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