Petrol Prices.com Reports Overwhelming Response to Top Gear Poll.

28th September 2006

In the last 24 hours thousands of members of the top consumer website have debated and voted in relation to the BBC’s decision to postpone the latest series of one of the BBC’s most popular shows "Top Gear".

The poll was launched 24 hours ago via email to Petrol Prices members and has received in excess of 76,000 votes with 4,000 members submitting messages of their dismay at how the British public are being wrapped in cotton wool and the BBC are questioning their intelligence.

The poll asked "Should Top Gear be toned down or axed?"

At the time of writing the results are clear in favour of the show being aired as planned with 89.5% of the members voting NO with a remaining 10.5% calling for the show to be either toned down or axed.

Brendan McLoughlin, co-founder of Petrolprices.com said "What a reaction! I think the BBC knows how important keeping Top Gear is now." He added "Our members' opinions are a good guide to the general feeling of all motorists in the UK and they have voted with their mouse!" The debate reflects the fact that motorists are fully aware of the dangers of speed and Top Gear and its presenters do not promote or condone dangerous driving on our roads.

The majority of the comments reflect the views of Petrol Prices member James Walbrin, who said:

"Top Gear is a fantastic entertainment show. Just because I watch Clarkson et al doing 120mph round a disused airfield doesn't mean I want to go out in my car and tear around the country doing the same thing. I think it is a totally ridiculous and absurd suggestion that because of an accident - and that’s what it was an accident, we should ban this entertaining and informative program.

Yes, at times it is absurd - but that makes it fun. I suppose we could ask Jeremy, Richard and James to do boring road tests of cars we all drive around in. But that would totally destroy the point. I like to see the likes of Ferraris/Aston Martins etc being driven by blokes and enjoying it for what it is.

SAVE TOP GEAR"

Negative comments were also received, such as this one from another member, David L:

"Top Gear does nothing but encourage poor driving and praise of the car.

In a time when more and more young drivers think it's "cool" to drive as fast as possible and terrorise other road users with their modified cars, anything which can be done to remove the trendy image of driving must be encouraged."

However, comments such as this one remain the minority and are heavily outweighed by support for the show.

Notes for Editors

Read the full blog article and comments here: www.petrolprices.com/blog

Petrolprices.com is the UK’s only comprehensive and free fuel price website for consumers, where they can find the cheapest petrol stations near any town or postcode of their choice. Prices are updated daily and displayed conveniently using Google Maps technology.

At the time of writing the difference between the highest price (100.0p) and the lowest price (84.9p) for unleaded petrol in the UK was 15.1p.

Petrolprices.com was launched in November 2005 by Fubra Limited, the same company that launched the largest UK house price website www.ourproperty.co.uk in January of this year.

For more information contact:

Brendan McLoughlin
Managing Director

E:
W: www.PetrolPrices.com
P: 0844 816 0001
F: 0844 816 9999