As long as you are happy to pay for your inefficient vehicle, fine then. That's the free market and personal choice for you.
If you like it, fine, but I have yet to meet anyone who actually "needs" an SUV in the sense that a minivan or truck wouldn't work just as well. Then again, I don't "need" to own nice clothes or to buy cds. Actually, Yankee, I've seen several posts by you about your SUV. You understand that it will cost you more and that it's less safe than a regular ol' car, but you like it anyway. I can respect that. You get credit for not being one of those SUV drivers who believes that low gas prices are a fundamental right.
However, if we have to start invading countries and killing tens of thousands of people, including women and children, to grab a strategic control of their oil it takes on a rather different perspective. If people in the third world are unable to buy the oil necessary to develop their contries up to the point where they can enjoy certain little luxuries... like food... then, again, it means something different. If I were in the third world I think I'd see this type of attitude as simple greed and stupidity. I think I'd try and do something to fight back against a country I'd see as uncaring despite their protestations to be generous and giving.
Gas here is $2.50 per gallon, and up to $2.75 in San Francisco. I bought a Civic Hybrid three months ago, which gets 52 mpg, mixed. When I put together a financial justification for the Hybrid, I used a typical price per gallon of $3.00. My wife thought I was looking into the future with sh!t colored glasses, but unfortunately I am getting proven right. Soccer moms in our area that drive SUVs spend $100/week on gas, or $5,000 per year. With two teenagers, my house in Santa Cruz mts and office in San Francisco, and coaching two soccer teams, I spend $12-15 per week, or about $660 annually. When prices hit $3.00, expect that difference to diverge to over $5,000 per year.
We're about to move office to an out-of-town place near Warrington, which means that instead of getting the bus into work everyday, I have to drive. I have just bought a Saab 9-3 TDi that does 45-55 mpg usually. Petrol in Liverpool is usually about 80p ($1.20?) a litre, so I'm looking at filling the tank for £40 (~$60) each time I head for the pumps. The round trip to the new office is only about 40 miles a day, but nonetheless - getting over 500 miles out of a tank is therefore clearly a cost advantage. My first tank load is actually still in there and I'm currently on 537 miles.
The last few cars I've had have been diesels - they're brilliant. Having said that I've got a petrol Laguna at the moment, (long story), but then I only live about 60 yards away from work On the other side of the coin, though, is the fact that I have to do a 20 mile round trip to get a bottle of milk. The problem is that we've designed our societies around the idea of moving relatively large distances in seperate little boxes rather than in public transport. I'm not suggesting that everyone can live 60 yards away from work but, if public transport was made clean and safe, if people didn't commute from 'the burb's' for work and leisure, this woudn't be such a problem.
True to an extent. But do remember that most European nations have public transport that would make your average Brit (or Yank) weep with envy, but there's still just as many cars in the garage. People just like the independence of driving themselves to and from a destination. Even if it means incurring irrational levels of cost, sitting in traffic jams with all the other, similarly irrational people who made the same choice and/or even taking longer than you would just hopping on a public service (look at all the muppets in London who drive through the city instead of using the Tube - that's just sheer insanity). Public transport could and should be good enough to be a credible alternative though. There's no question of that. One of the main reasons I resent the high fuel prices here is that the point of them is supposedly to ensure that public transport is well-funded. And yet we have easily the worst system in western Europe despite massive fuel levies.
Thanks. I frequently carry quite sensitive electronic equipment onto construction sites. Perhaps that is a very narrow need for an SUV, but the vehicle fits the job requirements perfectly.
In my experience, going TO the city from the suburbs is not the problem really. It's that sometimes suburbanites will admit that they don't won't city dwellers to have cheap, easy transportation to the suburbs. Thus, mass transit is just not a priority.
Or you have the Big Three block every effort at building an efficient mass transit system in their backyard.
That's part of it but the other is that politicians have been cowed by the oil and motor industries to allow lower mpg levels in utility vehicles, (and thus SUV's), and not to increase tax on gas in any meaningful way. I'm not suggesting it should be the $7/gal of the UK but, say, $4 would be a lot more effective in getting people to reduce their consumption. The thing is, as Matt says, we have to have the alternative BEFORE we increase gas prices - not after.
oh, something else, the gas in europe is higher quality, 95 octane i believe, than what we have avaliable here... so figure that youre paying $2 for really really ************ 86 or 87 octane, when the 93 you can get would be upwards of $2.3 a gal, and if you can find a sunoco anymore with 94 octane, thatd be $2.4 a gal.
You see, I think many people can accept that there may be a need for a rugged vehicle for some types of work but that the user may not need want or need to have a 4wd van or an all terrain vehicle all the time. A hybrid, then, makes sense. The alternative would be that you may need 2 vehicles, one for the shopping and taking the kids to school and another for work. But wouldn't it make more sense to have a higher fuel tax in general, and/or a requirement for ALL vehicles of X number of seats to do above a certain mpg and give people who genuinely use them for their work, such as you, a tax rebate. In the UK there are certain conditions on when a vehicle is a 'company vehicle' which alter when and how much tax is paid for it's use. The alternative is that people run their own vehicles and claim mileage from their companies at up to a certain rate per mile. What's the situation in the states?
And not just the Big Three. What's happening in Seattle right now, with a couple of millionaire property owners attemping to kill the monorail (for the THIRD time!), is absolutely disgraceful. In short, there have been three votes on the monorail, all of which have passed. Martin Selig (I believe) doesn't want it, though, so he went to court and forced it onto the ballot for a fourth time. This time, however, the pro-monorail forces are at a distinct disadvantage, because they weren't expecting another ballot measure and are thus unprepared to organize a fight for their cause. It's shameful. I grew up in Seattle, and the city desperately needs decent public transportation.
I live in a condo in downtown Cleveland. And I work on the other side of downtown Cleveland, about a mile away. I am right on several public transportation lines, but I prefer to drive, so that if I feel like it, after work I can go to the strip club, or go buy crack, or stop at a bar and get plowed--before weaving my way home. Vroom Vroom.
The point is, though, that we don't vote for the millionaire property owners - we DO vote for the politicians. They're the ones to blame if they allow individuals to force votes on things without wide public support. An answer might be not to allow anyone to alter a ballot without getting, say, 5% of the population that can vote in the ballot to sign a petition of some sort requesting that the issue be included. If they can't - screw 'em, regardless of how much money they've got.
Few things. I listen to public radio so I got a chance to hear a good call-in show about cars. One thing people outside the USA don't understand is the car culture here. Yea, we drive two blocks to the store! In fact, if you don't allow time for the car to warm up, you will consume more gas. Short hauls already have lower MPG due to the stop/start than long, freeway miles. If you take a look at your users manual, you will see the octanes listed for your car. These higher octane gases are not needed and are a marketing ploy to many extents. If you use a higher octane than listed for your car, your car will actually burn more gas, faster. That alone adds to consumption and in the long run, does it burn cleaner if it causes you to burn more? Besides, all this is moot. If re-elected, Bush will invent the Hydrogen car!
Oh, I think we do. I'll never forget the look on the face of a mate of mine in Manhattan when I told him that to get from his apartment in the Upper East side to his bar on 34th street I had walked. My dad once got arrested in Los Angeles because he was walking around the downtown area. The cop couldn't believe he was just going for a stroll and insisted on questioning on his real intent down at the precinct.
Considering you live in Metairie I'm not surprised you'd say that. Disclaimer: Yankee Blue: The comments below in no way are meant to reflect on you personally! I don't know you and I haven't noticed anything bigoted about you at all. See, most people move out of New Orleans to Metairie to get away from certain ethnic elements. And god forbid those elements be able to make their way to lovely, lovely Metairie. Oh, Metairie is the jurisdiction that almost sent David Duke to Congress. How do I know this? I grew up in New Orleans and had many, many friends in Metairie. Invariably the parents of these friends would ask me why my family stayed in New Orleans with all those black people. I wanted to kick those people in the groin.