genericbikedude

OK, sorry. But jeez, texas?

deathhare

Everynight i pray for the gas to hit $5 or $6/gallon.
It would probably be the best thing that could happen to this country in quite awhile.

Re-Cycle

joke?

Fugazi Dave

Let me put it this way: I *was* in Missouri. It's a step up, albeit to a place that's really only less-****ty, rather than actually where I want to be.

dobber

While moving would seem to be the simple solution, one needs to factor in other costs. Selling a house. If you're moving because it's to far, will someone else buy it if they have to drive a similar distance. Do you sell at a loss? Cost of new purchase, cost of moving. Does the move make your spouses drive longer?

I started commuting when gas was ramping up towards $2. I could easily afford the cost, still can but I was annoyed by it.

The whole energy equation has gotten out of whack.

dobber

I assume you don't have any responsibilities beyond yourself.

deathhare

Like what, for example?

colnago57

Unfortunately they just found a whack of tar sands on the Saskatchewan side of the border, somewhere in the neighbourhood of slightly less than 1 trillion barrels total. So like Northern Alberta, we can kiss our wilderness goodbye. Guess I should go and canoe the Clearwater a couple more times before they kill the river.

MasterHalco

It would also probably end my career and many others.

deathhare

things gotta change.

Ken Cox

Regardless of which numbers people use, and how they use them, it seems like bad math, to me, to deplete the Rain Forests and our Topsoil so that one Soccer Mom can have a bigger Luxury Barge than another Soccer Mom.
And, if people find "Soccer Mom Luxury Barge" sexist, then substitute Macho Man Mega Truck in every alternate usage.

The articles I read on gas prices say the American driver will continue to drive and buy fuel at his/her present rate of consumption until gas hits $6 per gallon.

=====

In the past 24 years, I have attended over a thousand fatal automobile accidents.

I hate cars with a passion.
I can't overstate or exaggerate my dislike for automobiles.
I find the alleged convenient transportation they provide irreconcileable with the suffering, grief, general misery, pollution, and social/cultural corruption they cause.

In America alone, 43,000 to 47,000 moms, dads, sons and daughters die every year in automobile accidents, not to mention the lives and families destroyed by grief and disability.
We wouldn't tolerate this in any other aspect of our lives, but we tolerate it with automobiles; and not for the convenience, but for the power and ego-enhancement of automobiles.
Automobiles have become an ego drug, like cocaine or meth.
Yes, speed kills.

I would like to see the national and local speed limits reduced to 60kph/36mph with no exceptions.
We have the technology to protect the occupants of automobiles in impacts occurring at this speed and below.

I would also like to see the gross vehicular weight of all vehicles on the public roads limited to 750kg/1650lbs.
That means the weight of the vehicle plus all fuel, baggage and occupants.

Further, I would like a common impact zone height, with no pickup trucks jacked-up till their bumpers match the windshield height of passenger vehicles.

The fatal accident rate would drop to zero, instantly.

Additionally, at 1650lbs and 36mph, automobiles would easily get 60 to 100 miles per gallon.

Those who want and can afford luxury, would pay Porsche and Mercedes Benz whatever it would cost to put the level of lsilent, seamless uxury they want into a 1650lb GVW package.

Additionally, a 36mph speed limit would make it easier and safer for alternative vehicles to participate in traffic.
We'd see more electric cars and human-powered vehicles, and the term hybrid vehicle might come to mean a hybrid of electric and human power.

In the meantime, don't let them give away our Rain Forests and Topsoil.

genericbikedude

here's the thing: it is inevitable.

so the government and people should plan now for creating an infrastructure and communities in which public transportation works, and people need less fossil fuel for their daily lives. that way, when the crunch hits, people wont be screwed.

I Like Peeing

If you want to take weight off of cars, they'll fold that much easier in a collision... A fatal accident rate of zero is not instant or even likely at all. How does this work?

deathhare

exactly, but its America so nothing will probably happen because it costs money now.

Rev.Chuck

Gas will not be the only thing going up. All fuels and power will double as well. Cost for delivery of goods will double. Retail pricing will go up. More expensive food and goods. The hardest hit will be those that can least afford it.

CF4L

Gas prices are not the problem or the solution.

The issue is the overall "American Dream" that runs most of the world. That is the concept of "You can always have more." Bigger. Faster. Longer. Cooler.

Americans will choose quantity over quality every day of the week, and until this mindset is changed, gas prices won't mean d*ck.

The other issue is that gas prices inversely affect those that have control over them. This means that the poor, the ones that will suffer most for their change, have the least amount of control over them. They don't have the luxury of moving closer to work, or changing jobs.. they are just try to get by. The people in power, with the ability to change things, have the most money and the least care of where gas prices go. Often they are the ones profiting in one way or another from their rise.

What’s the way to "fix" it? Encourage slow, locally controlled growth. Give incentives to buy and produce local goods and try to create an economy that has more control over itself. However, this isn't going to happen for 50 years or more, so don't hold your breath.

deathhare

Im poor but im ready. Lets go.

CF4L

You are a very very different type of poor I think. I believe you are young, single and educated (correct me if I'm wrong). Essentially you have nothing to lose and your education/wit will carry you through whatever you might run into. Most of the world/the country is not so lucky.

You can't have the desire to live in a social enviorment/planet, but want to screw most of the people. I understand that people will adapt, and I agree that there are lots of things that should change, but you can't desire to enduce panic and misery. The world can't work that way.

And if you want the world to oporate that way, move out to a little cabin and mail some letter bombs.

benoist

It already is. Petroleum, in the U.S., is HEAVILY subsidized through tax breaks for producers both on federal and state levels. The real cost of petroleum far exceeds $5 or $6 a gallon, but artificial tampering of the market by the U.S. has made it much cheaper for the consumer. If we want to ween ourselves off of petroleum and allow for alternatives to be developed why are we giving the companies we want to change money for doing business as usual. Its absurd. Our market economy is far less than free and it agrivates me to no end to watch so-called fiscal conservatives tout the benefits of the free market while they enjoy the luxuries of their subsidized oil prices. Our economy structure is amazingly ****ed and rarely appropriate associates price with actual cost.

Taxes are an effective tool to for limiting consumption (we do this with cigarettes and alcohol), so why then do we tax things we want to encourage like savings and provide tax breaks for things we don't want like petroleum dependency and coal burning. Prices should consider the FULL COST of an item "cradle to cradle" or during the entire lifetime of a product. The costs of petroleum (subsidized or not) does not end at the pump but instead is magnified in health costs, repair to buildings due to particle pitting, and acid rain (the statue of liberty cost $35 million to resurface due primarily to pollution). Until we do consider full cost and ditch the ****ed system of neo-classical economics our environment doesn't stand a chance in hell.

Finally, the solution comes in city planning, architecture, and the use of appropriate small scale technologies. Americans have to ditch this idea that progress is infinite (it isn't and can not be-- we will always be limited by the amount of resources available) and understand that we must live locally and sustainably. We have to design cities that are human scale (walkable) and ditch draconian zoning laws that make some of our best cities technically illegal to design. Giving developers incentives to cluster development, provide open space, mitigate and treat runoff, and lessen car dependency on their designs are all steps in the right direction.

I'm done.

(I'm studying to become and urban planner-- biases should be assumed-- but I'm right).

deathhare

You forgot good looking.
Actually though, im not single, im married.

I honestly dont think raising gas prices that much will enduce panic at all or too much misery. A lot of bytching and re-evauluating of priorities, yes. Thats the good part. People in this country are, for the most part, just wasting fuel as it is. I doubt i have to tell you how much of the world's oil we waste per capita in comparision to other major nations. Its a saddening statistic.
A fat mom driving across the city alone in a 6000lb vehicle that gets 8mpg is just a pathetic embarrassment for this country. The biggest problem with the typical American is the need conspicuous consumption. Look how ****ing rich i am you poor SOBs!!
Changes are needed.

Its under consideration.

Ken Cox

As one takes both weight and speed off a vehicle, and especially both vehicles involved in a collision, and the total energy decreases dramatically.

Between the effects of airbags and the reduced energies involved in a collision between two 1650lb vehicles traveling 36mph, people would walk away from every collision with no more than a bruise or a friction burn.

Airbags work amazingly well up to about 55mph, and they would work even better at 36mph.

As for cabin deformation, the less energy brought to the collision by both vehicles, the less energy available to deform the cabin.

The obese soccer moms and obese middle management dads drive their behemoths and pay obscene gas prices because they want the comparative safety they enjoy by bringing more energy to the collision than the person driving a smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicle.
In other words, they buy their safety at the expense of the other guy.

That said, even the small, fuel-efficient vehicles have gotten very good at protecting their occupants against heavier vehicles, unless the the heavier vehicle has a seperate girder frame at a height above the contact height of the smaller vehicle, and then the girder frame of the pickup truck intrudes into the cabin of the smaller vehicle.

It would help to imagine a collision between a compact family car and the typical Mega Pickup Truck driven around here, with nothing in the pickup bed.
In this accident, the young mother in the front seat has her face mashed to an unrecognizeable pulp, and she has two broken femurs.
It takes an hour to cut her out of the crushed cabin, and, in the meantime, she remains conscious and aware of her two dead children and her dead husband in the car with her.

I could easily spend my day walking around with crowbar, smashing pickup trucks and SUV's.

wroomwroomoops

A big "yes" to that. A healthier environment, which also makes more economic sense, and will help people spend less time in the car and more with their families - what can be better?

woodenwheels

pray for pandemic.

s-o

I filled the tank yesterday for $7.17/gallon. (12.09 swedish kronor/liter)
So far, the parking lot at work is full every morning, and only the students ride bikes. We might get some kind of improvement if the price of gas doubled, but until then I'm afraid everything will continue as usual.
It's still too cheap and easy to use your car to go a few miles.

mconlonx

Did you miss the unabomber-ish avatar?