Mandatory Homer reference:
Marge, with today’s gasoline prices, we can’t afford not to buy a pony.
So, you live in an area with good public transit, in a walkable/bikable area, with one spouse not working…and are still using half of the average. I mean, really. Back when I was only working part-time here in town, we were using about the same amount of gas you do, except we live in rural Appalachia and don’t have the sort of non-driving options you guys do. Is
I think bup’s consumption is pretty impressive: half the average.
And sure he lives in an area that’s friendly to driving less, but should he get credit for that choice?
Those of you who live in the suburbs made that choice, and he made his.
pdts
Adjust for exchange rate…and liters to gallons…carry the 2… ;)…$6.10, give or take.
I drive possibly once every two weeks, when I need an almighty bag of dog food. I drive three hours each way three or four times a year to get to my kid’s school. Love it this way.
About $8.77/gallon right now in Germany… 
I average less than a gallon a day precisely because I can and do walk to a lot of places. Unfortunately, I have to drive my son to school and often have to drive to pick him up because there is no safe route for him to be able to walk by himself. (He’d have to cross a major road with no crossing guard. But I walk to pick him up when the weather is nice.) So you may kiss my fat, white American ass.
I have two kids - one in middle school and the other in high school. The middle schooler takes the bus and the high schooler gets a ride. Somehow we manage to use less than a gallon and a half of gas a day doing it.
I’m in the suburbs of a large city - Chicago.
58% of Americans live in urban areas > 200,000 population. My situation isn’t amazing better than most people’s.
You come here to lecture all Americans on their gas use while at least 70% of your consumption is for other than commuting to work?
12 x 5 x 50 = 3000 miles
You are driving 7,000 miles or more per year (depending on how much you bike to work) for reasons other than commuting.
I consume a bit over 2 gallons a day. 15,000 miles a year in a Ford Ranger that I average about 19 mpg cumulative with. And I am one of the assholes you rail against with a 45 mile round trip commute.
45 x 5 x 50 = 11,250 miles
Means outside of commuting I am driving about 4,000 miles a year.
Why are you driving twice as many non-commuting miles a year? You should be able to easily reduce your consumption by another third. Why aren’t you doing it?
Now tell us all about the fabulous public transit options that exist in all those cities.
Oh right, you can’t.
Hey, America’s a democracy.
In my neck of the woods (the Triangle, NC), public transport taxes are routinely voted down in referenda.
You get the government (and the transport) you deserve.
There’s a masochistic part of me that kind of wishes that US gas prices followed the rest of the world in this respect.
When I’m in distant lands, such as Europe or South America, I enjoy driving in smaller vehicles, designed to sip gas and make do with less. While driving in a Fiat Uno on the highway in Brazil alongside other makes such as VW Gol, I always wonder why we (USA) can’t do the same thing, and reduce our oil consumption by quite a bit.
Then I get home and sit in traffic behind a Sequoia or Escalade and feel sad.
At $8.77/gal, those huge vehicles would be out of reach of many consumers, and those who could afford them would measure their choices carefully.
But then again, I’m no saint—I tend to drive my little VW in “sport” mode, which is quite peppy and fun, but consumes more gas than necessary. I realized the other day that my jaunt to the office costs about $25, between gas and tolls. That’s why I spend most of my days working from home.
Of all the swipes that people have taken at me in this thread, this is the first one that’s hit uncomfortably home. I don’t have a good answer.
I can weakly say that about 2500 of it, roughly, is on about 2 long-ish trips a year on average to the east coast, and there are 2 or more people in the car, which, you know, is pretty good person-mileage (I mean, if you want to get 2 people to the east coast, getting in a car that gets 35+ on the highway, so you’re getting about 70mpg per person, is pretty good). But that is weak, because it doesn’t affect what you said. I am putting more non-commuting miles on my car than a lot of people. I may be worse than a lot of people for “discretionary”[sup]1[/sup] car driving. I’m a stats geek - I’ll pay attention to the non-commuting miles I put on.
Me, too. But I’m pretty sure if our gas prices naturally rose to $8 or $9 a gallon, the same people that call Obama a socialist would suddenly expect the federal government to do something about how terrible the free market gas prices were.
[sup]1[/sup]All car miles are discretionary - including commuting. It’s a relative term.
The difference between “can’t” and “won’t.”
You’re still doing better than a lot of people - you’re willing to actually examine your lifestyle and consider that you can do better, rather than kneejerkily getting defensive and making excuses for why you have to do exactly what you’re doing and not even consider making changes.
One thing nobody’s mentioned is that part of the reasons for minivan and SUV popularity has been the expansion of child car seats, both physically, and the length of time children have to ride in them.
Considering that kids are supposed to sit in some sort of dumb-ass booster seat until they’re almost 9, what’s a family with 2-3 children under 4 supposed to do? There just flat out isn’t enough room in most small cars for the car seats and the parents to sit. I defy you to get 3 car seats into a Chevy Volt or Prius as well as both parents!
I don’t have kids, but i have friends who do, and i’d like to see some evidence that what you say is true, because i really don’t believe it.
I have a friend with a VW Bug. This is a two-door, with a pretty cramped rear seat. Yet she manages to fit her 2-year-old son’s car seat in the back, with him in it, without any problem at all. And if she had another kid, another identical seat would fit comfortably on the other side of the car. The only difficulty she faces is that the two-door configuration of the car makes it hard to lean in and get him into and out of the seat.
I also have friends with a Prius. I’m not sure if you’ve ever sat in the back seat, but the Prius is not really a small car. Sure, it’s no S-class Mercedes or Ford Expedition, but there’s plenty of room in the back seat for things like child seats.
Amazingly enough, in countries where people don’t habitually drive around in SUVs and minivans, families manage to do just fine transporting their children from place to place in their poky little cars. There might not be room for a drop-down DVD player or a portable water park in the back seat, but there are plenty of smaller, more economical cars where kids can fit just fine.
That’s a valid point, I think about 30% of families have three or more kids, and multiple carseats can be a bit difficult in a regular car, but it sure doesn’t explain why so many people have gigantic 6-seat gas-guzzlers when they have three kids who are out of car sears, or have grown kids who they don’t have to drive around, or are childless. Most of the young single people I know drive a truck, SUV, or minivan. And complain about the cost of gas all the time.
When I was a kid, my parents got a minivan when mom was pregnant with the third child (so one infant seat, one toddler seat, and a booster were going to be needed), we had a mid-size dog, and often drove a couple states away to visit family. But before my third sister came along, we were all in a VW bug. And when we were down to one carseat and had moved so far away from family we had to fly to visit, my parents traded in the van and bought a station wagon that cost a lot less to fuel.
That goes back to choices again. Most people choose to have as many kids as they have, and there are many repercussions for those choices.
It’s also not a valid point because most people don’t have three kids, they have 0.94 kids (link). You can easily fit two carseats (and parents and groceries) in the Corolla I drive. That goes back to the difference between “can’t” and “won’t” again. Sure there are some people who have three or more kids; most people don’t, though.
Some people get SUVs because they’re simply easier to get in and out of. I’m thinking specifically of an obese woman I used to work with. She said she’d love to have a smaller car, but SUVs were much easier on the knees.
I guess this is where the gray area of judgment gets grayer. Who am I to tell someone to “suck it up” for the greater good? I wouldn’t want to deal with knee pain either. But on the other hand, some could say it’s her choice to be obese in the first place, and that obese people have been driving non-SUVs since Heck was a pup.
So I don’t know.
It’s the third car seat that is a problem. When only “the baby” (under 2) was in a car seat, you could put the car seat in the middle and the other two kids on either side, no problem. You really can’t do 3 car seats, or even two car seats and one kid just in a belt.
So it used to be that if you had a 5 year old, a three year old, and an infant, you were okay. But now the five year old and the three year old are still in car seats, and likely to be for another several years. And even if you had two babies in car seats back in the day, you could put a 5 year old in the front and the other parent could stay home/take their own car on the rare occasions where all five needed to go somewhere. Now, with airbags all the kids have to stay in back without exception until they are 5’ tall and 12 or 13, so there is a lot less flexibility.
It used to be that a sedan was fine for virtually any family with up to three kids. Now, a sedan is only practical for families with two kids, or with a tremendous age gap.
ETA: also, “back in the day” you could put a kid in your lap in a pinch, allowing for more flexibility. We realize now how dangerous that is, and so it’s no longer an option.
Is the driving force behind the choice of small cars in Western Europe truly gas prices? In my observation, as soon as most people can afford to purchase and operate a larger car they do so. Relatively speaking that is. American size cars on European roads and cities are entirely impractical.
Higher gas prices would certainly change American driving habits, but will they necessarily change the size of the vehicle they drive? They desire? Or just result in more efficient power train options in typical American size cars?
If small really was desired, I’d think the Mini would still be as small as the original Mini, and lest you say that is an American market concession, I offer that the Fiat 500 would still be as small as the original.
