What's your average weekly dance mileage?

[Keefy]

OK, so we're all supposed to be going around hugging trees and reducing our carbon emissions, after all we've got to do something to offset the carbon emissions of government delegations flying to climate change conferences and a new Chinese power station each week... But recently I seem to be developing a carbon footprint the size of Yeti and constantly filling my cars with petrol a lot of it is dance related!

So just how many 'dance miles' are we generating each week driving to different venues? I try to get out a couple of times a week and on average that runs out at about 80 miles, but last week it was around 160, I'll do another 200+ this weekend to and from Swish.

I'll own up to the 50 - 100 miles range each week, what's your average dance mileage?

[tsh]

Between 50 and 400 a week, depending on freestyles.

[Yliander]

I'll own up to the 50 - 100 miles range each week, what's your average dance mileage?

does flying count?

[dep]

two class nights each week = 80miles
one party night each fortnight = 40/2~=20miles
one away day on alternate months = 150/8~=20miles
total~=120miles/wk
But, probably nearer 2000miles a year. @50p/mile that's a lot of money on top of entry, shoes, clothes, etc.
This addiction is getting to me.

[Steven666]

It used to be about 400 miles @ 11p per mile costing = £44.00.

Nowadays it's more 250 miles @ 11.5p per mile costing = £28.75.

Still a lot per week though.

[dep]

11p/m or so sounds like fuel only.
Do you disregard the other motoring costs that usually take the expense to around four times the fuel cost?

[Steven666]

11p/m or so sounds like fuel only.
Do you disregard the other motoring costs that usually take the expense to around four times the fuel cost?

I work on fuel only. Other expenses for me would include:

RFL : £105
Ins : £225
Rep's : £20-£70

Say £350-£400

When I'm spending about £1,500 on petrol (was £2,200) it will only change the rate from 11.5 to about 14.5/15p per mile if I excude depreciation. But in my circumstances depreciation is negliable anyways!

So if I use 15p per mile I spend approximately £37.50 per week or £1,950.00 per annum.

[Keefy]

I should have put some options in for higher mileages It depends how you work out the running costs (*) but petrol alone is costing me about 16p a mile so for a 80 mile round trip that's £12.80, I'm paying more to the government in petrol tax than I am for entry to the dance night

(*) The running costs calculated by the RAC et al include things such as finance charges, insurance and tax and come out at about 50p/mile. But they would still be clocking up even if I didn't go dancing and the car sat on the drive.

Somebody needs to work out the additional cost of a 'dance mile'

[Steven666]

Somebody needs to work out the additional cost of a 'dance mile'

Easy. It's one additional fuel mileage cost. If you never went dancing you would still have to pay road tax/car ins etc. Might be less repairs for less mileage but that isn't really something you can predict.

So for you 1 dance mile is 16p. For me it's 11.5p.

What do you drive?

(constants and variables and all that jazz)

[dep]

servicing and repairs are related to mileage.
Insurance discounts disappear for higher mileage users.
Depreciation is affected significantly by mileage.
I'll stick with around 50p/m but it might be (much) worse.

When the AA revised it's costs per mile figure downwards about twenty years ago, it was based on the fallacy that those that were interested in keeping motoring costs down were doing their own servicing using discounted (non standard or sub standard) parts. The AA figures do not reflect the true cost if your manufacturers' agent does your servicing. How important is that fully stamped service booklet and low recorded mileage to your trade in value?

[Keefy]

So for you 1 dance mile is 16p. For me it's 11.5p.

What do you drive?

That may have been a bit on the hight side I don't keep detailed records but I know that with the trip meter showing between 250 and 300 miles it costs me £40 to fill the damn thing So even on a good day it wont drop below 13p, it's an 1800cc. Let's say I do 5,000pa to dance events, that's half a service, say another 2.5p per mile. According to the Parkers mileage adjustment charts that 5,000 miles is knocking £250 off the value of the car, so that's another 5p per mile.

Adding that little lot up gives over 20p per mile as the additional cost of a 'dance mile'.

[dep]

Another way to look at it is that the first mile one does on new year's day costs £5000 and then all the following miles whether to the shops, to see mum or friends, dance, take the kids to school, holiday, etc cost just fuel and servicing.

Hints of rose tinted glasses?

[Yliander]

so far this year I've roughly averaged 658.33 miles per weekend so I'm guessing I have the carbon footprint of a small mammoth

lowest mileage for a weekend was 198 miles but that doesn't include mileage around and about once I got where I was going

[Steven666]

Having thought about this, the only variables concerned are:

- fuel (per dancing mileage obviously)

- additional insurance re high mileage (ie not the full insurance amount as the base insurance on low mileage has to be paid anyway and so is not an addition costs when driving for dance)

- additional repairs (difficult to estimate)

Items not included for me:

- depreciation (your car depreciates with age rather than mileage, although not strictly true, it's what an accountant will go by, so if you never dance or always dance, depreciation will remain constant with time)

- insurance at base/low level mileage (this is paid whether you go dancing or not, only the excess mileage premium will be affected by going dancing)

- road tax (this is just constant whether you go dancing or not)

- base repairs (difficult to estimate)

Then there are other factors such as passengers weighing the car down, wind resistence

[gebandemuishond]

Zero - I walk

Dan

[dep]

Zero - I walk

Dan

you live in the class premises?

[Keefy]

Items not included for me:

- depreciation ...

- base repairs (difficult to estimate)

I'm going to settle on a 'dance mile' costing me roughly...

- 14p for petrol, but that depends on how I tickle the throttle

- For under/over average mileage Parkers gives a figure of £50 per 1,000 miles on or off the cars value. So 5,000 miles would be £250, or 5p per mile.

- For base repairs there's the 10,000 mile service, so 5,000 miles would be half a service at (say) £250, so that's 2.5p per mile. The only real wear and tear will be tyres, if they last 20,000 miles then my 5,000 miles is one tyre, £70 or (roughly) 1.5p per mile.

That gives me - 14 + 5 + 2.5 + 1.5 = 23p per mile as the probable cost of a 'dance mile'

I think I'll use my old car tonight as that's probably heading to the great breakers yard in the sky later this year I can run that for virtually a straight 13p per mile petrol cost.

[JennyC]

I could sit and work this out but I want to stay in complete denial of how much I'm travelling at the moment for dance purposes and how much it actually costs!!

The value that it's giving me from a "dealing with life" persepctive at the moment far outweighs the costs!

Car sharing is the way forward!! That way I feel I'm not being completely unenvironmental and can recoup some petrol costs whilst taking a nice group of friends on a good night out - everyone's a winner

Please don't get me started on the current cost of petrol it will only make me

I'm just going to go and quietly bury my head back in the sand ...

[sidney]

We always share a car 3-5 people, and I only go to freestyles at the weekend, so I do a run about every two weeks which costs about £10 and we all pay £2.00 each to the person who is driving, so by doing it that way it is cheap and we always have company, and I go local in the week for my salsa which is only a couple of miles, so I am doing my bit with my carbon printmark.

[gebandemuishond]

you live in the class premises?

Pretty much. Well, I have to step outside my college, walk down a bit of road, then into the Town Hall. Convenient, but it limits the nights I can go to to one per week as I don't have a car (not that I'd have the time anyway )

Dan