Drive Your Guzzler, but Quit Complaining
The current price of regular gasoline is approaching $3.
But do most of us care?
I do a couple minor things that help improve my gas mileage. I use cruise control whenever possible. And if I am on the parkway and in no hurry, I just stay at 55 rather than bump it up to 65 where legal. (Yeah, that’s me.) Pretty small stuff, but it helps.
But most motorists, according to experts, do precious little to try to save money.
They continue to buy gas guzzlers, absurd vehicles that get 10, 12, 14 miles to the gallon, and hold in disdain smaller cars with more than double that mileage.
They don’t drive less.
They burn rubber.
Hey, it’s a free country and if you want to drive a vehicle that gives lousy mileage and if you want to continue to make unnecessary trips and drive in a way guaranteed to burn up the most fuel, that’s your right.
Just stop complaining.
posted by Joe Zelnik @ 5:57 PM
8 Comments
8 Comments:
I have so many thoughts on this subject. Am I limited in how many I can share?
Thought No. 1: Everybody should use as much gas as they possibly can burn and quickly! Let's use it all up, every single drop, and then there won't be anything left to fight about. There may not be any earth left either, but who cares about that? We have proven that we certainly don't -- not so long as there is gas to burn!
Thought No. 2: Based on his WW II experiences that revealed the necessity of roads for moving people and machinery, Eisenhower mapped out America's current road system -- thereby igniting America's love affair with the car, the open road, and travel. Why has no one seen the equally imperative necessity of mass transportation is beyond me. Lack of public transportation isolates the poor, the disabled, and the elderly and limits their access to jobs, health care, schools, etc. This has been a terrible travesty in America. We could learn a lot from Europe with its Eurorail.
Thought No. 3: Get off your butts and get moving! In Norway, home to my husband's family, gas is about $8 a gallon (about $4 a liter, which is the way they buy it). Norwegians drive as little as possible -- they walk, ski, jog, ride bikes, and carpool in hired taxis. This may be because of the price of gas, but I suspect it is also a different lifestyle. Norwegians PREFER to move their bodies and enjoy the great outdoors. How many times have I heard someone say, "I can't go because I don't have a way," and I think, "What? Are your legs broke?"
Well, maybe they are just following my Thought No. 1 -- let's burn the gas, people! Pedal to the metal!
I do care about the drying up of oil wells. Peat, the national fuel of Ireland, has been depleted and what do bog rights matter now? I remember gasoline rations in WWII, but Dad, who drove a lorry in WWI in Ireland and joined the US Navy
in 1918, and built and manned a watchtower over Boston Harbor in 1940, had gas cards for eleven, & we still cut back, because brother and boyfriends had gone to war. So
what do I do? I give up cooking, which I love, to save on energy & to finish my masterpiece before my hands become completely arthritic.
We drive 4 mi. to Courthouse for a breakfast club & find reasonable places for supper. If we lose a few pounds this way, well that's a saving on energy too. I'm always looking for new ways to save what little energy is left.
Come on, guys, give a little old lady who doesn't sit around ideas.
Grandma Moses
You drive 8 miles roundtrip to save the energy used in cooking? Are you sure it's not your own energy you're saving? By the way, where is the breakfast club and are there any dues?
Joe, I made a math error. There are close to FOUR liters in a gallon, so the price of gas in Norway is almost $16 a gallon. Can you imagine the complaining in America at $16 a gallon? There might even be riots and cars stolen not for the car itself but for the gas it contains. And we'd all be reminiscing 'bout the good ol' days when gas was only $3 a gallon ...
We went to Philly for husband's doctor's appointment yesterday and everyone was burning as much gas as possible. I couldn't find any parking or stopping spots and had to drive around looking the whole time. Mobs of people were crossing on red lights, walking in the bike paths. An EMT fire van couldn't get through, with sirens wailing, and it made the cars pull up on the sidewalks. When an EMT gal was finally let out, a body on the sidewalk was being covered. Van was signalled around to a pick-up-only-spot. Brotherly love isn't left in Philly, so we came back to our open 65 mpr N.J.roads. Speedy
Doctor's visits are one of the few justifiable reasons for going to Philadelphia.
Isn't it beautiful how God opens up new energies to us continually? The pine forests with their wood for burning are gone. Horse power with its pulling of the plow, and carriage, is just a memory (except in center city Philly). Coal mines have emptied under their green valleys. Now oil is retreating, and nuclear energy needs to be tamed and shared. Down through the millenia God has brought us new sources of energy. Why do we act as if his force is depleted? Praise the Lord and pass his ammo (new energy) still works. Easy.
Breakfast Clubs, I see now, are in every city, even Philly. You get a free newspaper, coffee, bun and conversation with the many senior citizens, doubling since the 1900s and more expected by 2030. Maybe we'll have a club in the Harbor when it get offs the youth kick & admits we mostly older folk still walk & ride bicycles. In the 40's Dad had the only car in the block and let us kids bring pals to City Pt. beach, ten in his old Packard sometimes. If their Moms gave our pals suits, they could swim, if not, they ran in the rough sand. We should share more on our rides out of Stone Harbor, but nobody wants to come clean about going to the bright lights & continually clanging slots of Atlantic City.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home