Jayne Dowle: If you really want to share our pain, Mr Cameron, fill your car with petrol

Whatever we do to cut household costs, to operate our own "austerity budgets" if you like, there is nothing we can do about the price of petrol.

From all directions, we motorists are powerless, held over a barrel of oil.

I know the situation is complex, and I don't know what the long-term solution is, but it seems to me that while ever the Prime Minister dithers and dallies over introducing the fuel price stabiliser, as promised in the Conservative Party General Election manifesto, we will suffer.

The cost of filling up has soared in recent months to an average of 1.28 a litre, more for diesel. Oh, those heady days of only a year or so ago, when you could fill your tank for around 56 and drive off into the sunset, or at least to Scotland, without having to take out a bank loan. And, just to cheer us up, we face a hike in fuel duty in April.

No wonder the PM has told us not to get our hopes up for prices to fall any time soon.

Motorists. It's an interesting term, isn't it? David Cameron and George Osborne seem to use it in the quaintest sense.

When they come under fire for being apparently unable to do anything about the rising cost of fuel, they blithely reassure us that the price hikes "only affect the motorist". It's as if "the motorist" is some special interest group of Mr Toads paying the price of indulging in their own peculiar hobby. Actually, there are an estimated 35 million of us drivers, getting to work and back every day, shopping, running errands, looking after elderly relatives, taking the kids to school, and generally living our lives. We're not exactly a minority, and it's not exactly luxury living is it?

Oh, there are options to driving an evil thirsty car. Buy a new super-efficient environmentally-friendly model? Yes, if you have around 20,000 lying around that you can't find any other immediate use for.

Take the bus to save money? Yes, if you can find one, sure. But for countless people, especially those in rural areas where a bus is as rare a sight as an octopus on a bike, this isn't an option. Buy a bike yourself? A good idea, if you're young, fit and brave, and don't have eight bags of supermarket shopping to lug home every week.

Necessity being the mother of invention, it's not as if we aren't coming up with ideas to help ourselves. Apparently, car-sharing has gone up by more than 50 per cent in the last year, giving commuters the chance to split petrol costs. It's fine if it works, but let's be realistic. This isn't an option for everyone.

And in any case, it doesn't take a political genius to work out that the cost of petrol doesn't just affect the private motorist. Only this weekend we heard that police squad cars might be kept in the garage to save money.

Ambulances, delivery trucks, dustbin lorries, farmers, and yes, public transport… all affected by high petrol prices. And one way or another, we all end up paying for it in higher taxes to fund essential services and higher prices for the delivery of food and other essentials.

I know that Ministers are held over a barrel too, at the mercy of the growing price of oil globally, and at the oil companies' obsession with profits. And also, under pressure from the environmental lobby, especially as David Cameron has vowed to make this "the greenest government ever", whatever that means.

However, what nobody in government seems prepared to admit is that driving is not some kind of luxury, it underpins our daily lives. I can remember the fuel protests in 2000. Even though I lived in London, and relied much more on public transport in those days, the panic when the petrol started to run out was very real.

Now, just to add to our woes, we face the looming threat of a tanker drivers' strike and the possibility of petrol shortages pushing prices up even higher.

Mr Cameron says that he wants to find a way of sharing our pain. That's very thoughtful of him, but I have

yet to be convinced. If he had to stand at the pump himself, watching those figures whizz round and contemplating the prospect of his overdraft

growing with every click, then perhaps he would do something about it.

Meanwhile, what can we do except take a deep breath and swallow it? If anything ever epitomised the spirit of "Keep Calm and Carry On", it is the British driver at a petrol pump this morning. But for how much longer?