"picked the cheapest"
That is because the travelling public refuse to pay realistic prices, they still expect a week's holiday in Greece for £99 including all the taxes, hotel, resort transfers etc etc... Some holidaymakers need to wake up to reality with the high oil prices, crippling APD and strong Euro. You cannot fill a small car for less than £60 nowadays!!
Spot on, the best example I've seen of that recently was on a Tenerife forum on a topic discussing flights to/from the UK, a member posted that Easyjet had some cheap fares for £120 return, the replies he got back summed it up with people saying £120 return wasn't cheap and they would not pay over £100 return anymore.
Expect less than £100 for a 4,000 mile return trip, but probably pay £70 to fill their car up to get them 400 miles!