I’m guessing you’ve never been poor. You can’t set things aside for a rainy day because it is always pouring. Resources are used immediately.
Depends on what you mean by poor. I have had times when I’ve had little or no income and had to watch every penny.
And I deny that all resources must be used immediately. Either it’s physically possible to survive on $X or it isn’t. And if it is, it’s still possible to survive on $X even if you actually have $X+1.
When I was a dumb kid and just got my first car, back before cell phones, I had the bad habit of pushing my luck when it came to refilling after the gas light came on. Luck would have it that I ran out on one of the coldest nights of the year. About 8 below zero. Just had a leather jacket and I knew a gas station was less than a mile up the road and figured if I ran I could probably survive.
So I threw on the hazards and jumped out of the car. Luckily I went no further than 50 feet when a woman told me to jump in her car. She graciously took me to the gas station, waited while I bought a can and some gas, then drove me back to my car.
Lesson learned.
I’ve ran out of gas a few times, the most recent being probably 10 years ago. 1986 Suburban with no working fuel gauge. Before that was when I was a teenager and my VW bus also did not have a working fuel gauge. One instance I had go knock on some rando’s door and ask to use their phone to call my folks to come get me, and once I had to walk ¾ of a mile or so to a friend’s house. All before cellphones, of course. I dangerously started carring a Jerry can of unleaded around with me after that.
Now all my cars have working fuel gauges and I consider ¼ tank to be “empty” so I tend to fill it around ⅜ of a tank or so. The car I bought last year has had the low fuel light (that comes on when there’s about 40 miles left in the tank, according to the manual) come on only twice and that was on longer drives with significant distance between gas stations.
And I still carry an old Halliburton case in the trunk filled with tools and emergency supplies.
My car actually tells me (as an estimate) how many miles I have left before I run out of gas.
Wait, I’m not sure I get this part. The police came by, couldn’t reach a tow truck, and then just left you out in the cold? They couldn’t, I don’t know, call you a cab? Call a friend to come get you? Drive you to the gas station? Hell, I’d expect a cop car to carry some reserve gas, couldn’t they just spot you half a gallon or something?
Its been a while but i have endured this situation myself. Surprised they let you fill in an unauthorized container, they must have taken pity on you.
Now I never let my tank get below 1/4 full. Never. Generally I refill at half a tank. And I’ve driven enough clunkers since then to appreciate that AAA is a great investment. Not only for me but for friends that call in the middle of the night and need help.
My brother ran out of gas many years ago, coasted the last few miles, downhill, all the way to the gas station, they only had to push the car a few feet to get it close enough to the pump.
Ha! This happen to me too the last time I ran out. Sweated out the last 5 miles, pulled into the station and coasted to within 3 feet of the pump. Damn what a rush/relief.
Mine does as well (2020 Civic) but 1) I find it’s wildly optimistic. If I fill up the tank it will say I have about 340 miles available and if I factor in the unused fuel left in the tank when I fill up again I would be very lucky to get 300 miles. 2) the couple times I’ve had to push it and the gas light has came on the “range” # dissappears and is replaced with a “low fuel” message. I think there’s a way to override the message, but I’ve never messed with it and it has happened so rarely that I havent had the chance to play around with it when I’m thinking about it.
In a followup post, he said the store was closed but the pumps were open. There might not have been anyone around to see that he was using an unauthorized container.
This thread got me thinking about the feasibility of a collapsible gas can to carry in your car for just such an emergency as the OP had.
Yep. Of course such a thing is available. Now I’m curious how well it works.
Also, fwiw, in a pinch a 20-oz or 1-liter water or soda bottle with the bottom cut off at a ~45° angle makes a great funnel for gas.
Mine is fairly accurate. It obviously cannot predict how you will be driving or if you will be leaving your car idle for long periods, but for the most part it give me a good estimate.
Mine cuts off at 25 miles, or at least that’s the lowest I’ve ever seen it. I get a bit better than that per gallon, so I assume that it just cuts out when I am below a gallon. I generally try not to let it get that low.
Very few people in the Western world are so poor that they can’t set aside $10 for an emergency supply of gas.
About 15 years ago, we had an ice storm here in this area of NC. My office closed in mid-afternoon and I started to head home. It’s normally about a 55-minute drive, and much of it is along a two-lane road that is well-traveled but has virtually no gas stations.
I eventually got home around 10:00P, after more than 5-1/2 hours on the road. While I did not run out of gas, dozens and dozens of people did just on the route I was on. The majority of them seemed to be teenagers, probably driving home when school was released early. I must have seen at least ten (presumed) parents out rescuing them. Many of the drivers were clearly in tears. I can hear the parents now…“I TOLD you to keep your tank filled and to come straight home.”
I had a lot of sympathy, but no gas cans.
You have never been really poor, then.
Electric vehicles must run out of power in isolated places too. Call the AAA for a charge?
Junior modding. Stop. Please. Five sentences. No verb.
I have never run out of gas myself, but I remember one night about midnight on the Penna Turnpike with a friend in his 1955 (or so) VW bug, the one with no gas gauge. There was a reserve tank good for maybe 30 miles, but we were 40 miles out of Philly when the regular tank emptied and he had to kick in the reserve. Uh oh. We got off the turnpike hoping to find an all-night station, but in those days that was not common. Finally we found a truck depot open all night and talked the attendant, aided by a 5 dollar bill (gas was a quarter a gallon in those days) to give us a couple gallons and we got back on the turnpike and drove into Philly without further incident. Scary, but in the summer no big deal to sleep in the car.
I wonder if this is a thing that only happens once (I hope) before you learn your lesson. When I was 17 and poor I ran out of gas on the highway in the middle of winter. A guy stopped and offered me a ride to the gas station but I had stranger danger still drilled into my head, so I declined. Og bless him, he left and came back with a gas can. I’m still grateful, 20 years later.
After that experience, I don’t let it drop lower than a quarter tank.
Oh wow that reminds me, when I was 19 my brother and I decided to drive from VA to Mytle Beach, SC. We left about 12 pm intending to there about 6 pm. But we took a wrong turn somehow and ended up hours out of the way. So I decided to start drinking and let him drive. Totally forgot to tell him that the gas gauge was not accurate and that if it got to 1/4 full we needed to fill up. May not have made a difference as we were on a two lane highway in the country in SC. Ran out of gas about 10 pm. No businesses in site, let alone gas stations.
Got out and started walking, eventually saw a house with a light on. What the hell, may as well knock on the door. A guy came to the door and we asked where the nearest gas station was. He said about a mile down the road. Thanked him and we just stood there looking at him for a few very long seconds, started to walk away, and then he said he would take us there
I’m still grateful, 40 years later