HARD-pressed families are reeling after the cost of filling the car with fuel broke the £100 barrier.

The cost of both petrol and diesel is at an all-time high and families are feeling the pinch.

Filling up the average Ford Mondeo with diesel now costs an eye-watering £103.11, up from £99.05 last year.

Even smaller cars, such as a Toyota Yaris, rack up £73.65 for a full tank.

Research for the motoring organisation, the AA, warned that car fuel poverty was the latest threat to living standards.

An AA spokesman said it now costs £71.24 to fill an average family car.

And that compares to a family of four spending just £70.10 a week on food.

Mum-of-four Julie Moorhouse, 44, of Holmfirth, said fuel prices were impacting on family budgets.

Filling her car at Adamsons Bridge Texaco petrol station in Bradford Road, Huddersfield, she said: “Petrol is becoming one of our biggest outgoings.

“As a family we rely on our car and public transport isn’t an option.”

Yorkshire is no longer the cheapest place for fuel and the AA said petrol prices had risen by 10.23p a litre and diesel by 7.32p a litre since the beginning of this year.

The AA blamed speculators for pushing up oil prices and said the Government should do more to tackle the problem.

AA president Edmund King said: “Panic buying in March forced some cash strapped families to spend far more on fuel than their budgets could bear.

“Filling up a 50-litre tank costs more than some families spend on food each week.”

Fuel prices have continued to rocket despite a 20 per cent drop in demand in the UK since before the credit crunch.

Academic Colin Bamford, professor of transport and logistics at Huddersfield University, said that simple economics dictated that prices should have dropped not risen.

“If demand has fallen and there is no problem with supply – which there isn’t despite the blip caused by panic-buying two weeks ago – then prices should have come down.

“The question to ask is: what’s going on? The allegation is that someone, somewhere is on the make.

“The retailers make very little profit and while there are problems in the Middle East it has not affected our supplies here.

“It seems there are speculators out there trying to make money. They are buying fuel in the same way they buy other commodities such as coffee or tea.”

Other drivers filling their cars in Huddersfield spoke of their frustration at rising prices.

Building society worker Amir Alisic, 24, of Waterloo, described the cost of fuel as “absolutely shocking.”

He travels to work in Wakefield and Sheffield and can’t manage without his car.

“I travel 350 miles a week and it costs me £40 to £50 a week in diesel,” he said.

Mr Alisic’s finances are about to be stretched further as his fiancee Julie is three months pregnant with their first child.

“Don’t get me wrong I’m on a decent wage but everything else is going up and my salary isn’t,” he added.

“I’m all for helping other people but where do our taxes go?”

Other drivers were resigned to shelling out for fuel.

Lisa Burrows said: “I really don’t know how much it costs. We can’t do anything about it and we need to fill up.”

Peter Shaw said: “Right now all we are talking is pennies. The real crisis will come when we hit £2 a litre, and that won’t be far away.”

See why Huddersfield University's Colin Bamford thinks more price rises are needed on the next page

AN ACADEMIC believes the cost of motoring is still not high enough despite record fuel prices.

Huddersfield University transport expert Prof Colin Bamford says congestion charges or road tolls are the only way forward.

Prof Bamford said Britain’s transport system was in a “mess” and needed a radical overhaul.

He said the only way to break the public’s love affair with their cars was to tax them more and put the money into better public transport.

“It is a controversial subject and some people will think I’m an idiot and others will say I am talking a lot of sense,” said Prof Bamford.

“People are very blinkered on the issue, particularly at the moment with fuel prices as high as they are.”

Prof Bamford said public transport was pretty poor and people often had little alternative than to use their cars.

“If you live in Scapegoat Hill, for example, and didn’t have a car you would feel isolated,” he said.

“I live along the main Wakefield Road but after 7pm there’s only one bus an hour and they finish at 10pm. It’s crazy.”

Prof Bamford added: “We have a mess in our transport market with extortionate rail prices and crazy bus fares.

“The solution would be to make a direct charge for using our vehicles.

“It was something the Blair government announced in 2005 but there was a huge public reaction and it was watered down.

“What was left is that cities now have the opportunity to introduce localised schemes.

“There was a referendum in Manchester and not surprisingly 86 per cent said no.”

Prof Bamford, who drives a diesel car but uses buses and trains as much as possible, said London’s congestion charge was a model to consider.

“In London about half the congestion charge has gone into subsidising new buses and fares, helping upgrade the underground and so on. That is a much fairer way of going about it.”

The Netherlands will introduce road charging in 2015 but they had an integrated public transport system, and the country was generally flat making it easier to get around without cars.

“We don’t have the alternative of many other European countries and the only way we can get that alternative is through a direct charge for the use of road space.

“Economists have been putting this forward for years but politically it’s a banana skin.

“If the Government wanted to introduce it they would have to sell it in a very positive way,” he said.

One supermarket announced on Saturday morning it was cutting prices at the pumps. Find out which on the next page - plus more about the tanker drivers' union and strike worries.

SUPERMARKET giant Asda today brought some relief to families with a cut of up to 2p a litre on fuel.

The Leeds-based company promised that drivers filling up from today would pay no more than 138.7p for unleaded and 143.7 for diesel.

The first price cut of 2012 comes after fuel costs hit record levels, leading to fears of rising car fuel poverty.

Asda said a drop in global oil prices, and the strengthening of sterling against the US dollar, had reduced wholesale costs, enabling the supermarket to pass on savings.

Andy Peake, Asda’s director of petrol trading, said: “We're committed to doing everything we can to help lower the cost of living for our customers, and today’s move shows that Asda is once again leading the way in reducing the price at the pump.

“Unlike other retailers, our price cuts benefit everyone across the country, meaning that no-one filling up at Asda will be forced to pay a premium for their fuel.”

FRESH talks aimed at averting strikes by fuel tanker drivers are to be held next week, raising hopes that industrial action can be averted.

The conciliation service Acas announced that leaders of the Unite union and officials from six distribution companies will meet on Monday.

Unite has also been given an extension to next Tuesday before it has to make a decision about calling industrial action.

The two sides have already held six days of talks, but tanker drivers’ representatives overwhelmingly turned down a proposed agreement on Wednesday despite progress being made on some of the issues involved in the row.

The new talks will involve Hoyer, which has its headquarters in Huddersfield, even though Unite is to re-ballot its members at the firm after the union discovered that a number of its members had not received ballot papers during the original voting last month.

Peter Harwood, Acas chief conciliator said: “The employers and Unite have agreed to an extension of the validity of the ballot period for a further four days until Tuesday, to enable these talks to take place.”

Unite represents around 530 drivers at Hoyer, one of the biggest distribution firms, which delivers fuel to Esso and Shell garages.

The Hoyer workers, who voted 59.7% in favour of strikes in a turnout of almost 80% in the previous ballot, will vote again, from April 26 to May 8.

THE area’s small businesses are struggling under the impact of fuel price rises.

Tom McGlade, who runs McGlade Contractors, a civil engineering firm in Rawthorpe, uses red diesel for his plant machinery and said his costs had doubled in three years.

“The rise in fuel prices has taken a serious amount of money out of our business,” said Mr McGlade.

“There is no chance of passing it on our customers because if we did we wouldn’t get the work.

“We just have to battle on and accept that the working man has no choice but to pay up.”

Huddersfield taxi driver Mohammed Ali is another who has had to change the way he operates after 25 years in the trade.

Mr Ali, 48, said it was only a few years since it cost him £90 a week in diesel. Now it was £160.

“Fares haven’t kept pace with the fuel increases and if we put prices up, people will go somewhere else,” he said.

Mr Ali said he was considering swapping his minibus for a car to cut costs.

“If I was driving a car on a Saturday night it would cost £20 in diesel. In the minibus it costs £40. I am only making a couple of quid more in fares in the minibus and it doesn’t add up.”

Self-employed plumber Jeremiah Buchanan, 50, of Springwood, said he had to watch how much fuel he put in his van to balance his cashflow.

“I can’t afford to have money tied up in fuel when I have parts and materials to buy,” he said. “It’s like robbing Peter to pay Paul.”