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It feels as though fuel prices haven't been out of the news this year.
With the 'credit crunch' forcing most of us to watch the pennies more closely than normal it has been tough to stomach rising fuel prices, pushing up the price of many consumer goods, and making it more expensive to drive.
To deal with these rising prices drivers should have been adapting their travel patterns to reduce the amount of petrol or diesel that they use. Adopting a more efficient driving style, car sharing, journey planning and wherever possible, cutting out unnecessary travel all make a big difference. There is also a strong argument to consider investing in a newer and more efficient vehicles or even switching to alternative technologies such as hybrids or electric vehicles.
So it comes as a great relief that in the past couple of weeks motorists have been rushing to the pumps with petrol prices falling to below the £1 per litre barrier and diesel prices dropping a comparable amount. The major supermarkets have been able to reflect the fall in the price of oil by cutting pump prices while energy giants Total, BP and Shell, also followed suit.
The independent forecourts are not able to react quite as quickly because they take fuel deliveries less frequently than the high volume sites, but once they have sold off their more expensive fuel stock the lower prices are likely to be universal.
So, great news for individual drivers and businesses, but it is really important that complacency doesn't set in. While the cost pressures of filling up have eased, if drivers become sloppy, allowing fuel consumption to creep up, they won't feel the benefit of the falling pump prices. Let's remember, prices are only back to the levels they were a few months ago when we were being urged to protest about them breaking the £1 per litre barrier!
It is crucial to get into good habits and stick to them so drivers must continue to drive as smartly and economical as they were when prices were consistently rising, whether they are driving on business or for personal journeys.
Clearly the oil market remains in a volatile state so prices on the forecourt are likely to reflect this going forward. The important thing to remember is that while we can have no impact on the price per litre that we pay, we can do a lot to affect our overall fuel costs.
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