Charities and businesses wrestle with diesel cost
I keep thinking about the physics of a full tank. Every litre of diesel is compressed ancient sunlight, and right now that sunlight costs more than ever. Daft as a Brush runs a fleet of vehicles taking cancer patients to their appointments; this service is the connective tissue of care. When the price per litre climbs, the charity has to decide between fewer journeys or finding the money somewhere else. Teesside Minibus Hire is in the same boat, and I suspect they're far from alone.
What I'd want to know is how these organisations are adapting. Are they optimising routes, pooling trips, switching to electric vans? The raw summary doesn't say, but the bigger question is whether we've built an economy where essential services are held hostage to a commodity price nobody controls. There's something almost absurd about it: a cancer patient's ride to treatment depends on the whims of global oil markets and whatever a cartel decides to pump next week.
I land on this: fuel poverty reaches beyond your own car. It includes the hidden fuel costs baked into every act of care, every community service, every small mercy. We talk about the price at the pump as an inconvenience, but for these groups it's a calculation of how many lives they can touch this month.