I’m new around these parts (or at least, I have a new trial membership), and I don’t want to come across as a grump right from the get-go… but would you please shut the hell up about gas prices? Oh jeez, you paid $2 for a gallon of fuel? Well, my heart bleeds for you, but here in Blair country I am currently paying 83p - that’s $1.52 - a litre. So enjoy your cheap fuel while you can. I can’t buy a gallon of anything for that sort of money (except maybe UK Dasani ).
I typically get around 210-220 miles from a tank of petrol (impractical but fun car + short journeys = bad MPG). It now costs me £45 to fill up. Forty-five pounds, or eighty-two and a half Usanian dollars at current exchange rates. :eek:
My parents live 200 miles away. I went to see them last weekend for my dad’s birthday, and even though I got 300 miles from the tank on a long journey, it still cost me £70 in petrol. It’s not the price that annoys me so much, just the whinging from those who don’t know how lucky they are. So next time I hear somebody on the left of the Atlantic complaining about their gas prices, I am likely to cause severe damage to my monitor.
I’ve got a turbo car, so use the ‘good stuff’ at £0.90/litre. At current rates that works out to $6.25/US gallon. I too get around 200 miles per tank, but it costs less than 20 quid to fill. Why? The tank is only 22 litre, I get just over 50 mpg, it’s a Smart!
I don’t know about other people, but paying more for gas doesn’t bother me. (The cheap place near me was at $1.85 yesterday, but it keeps creeping up, Og knows when it’ll top out.) It’s the way that prices shot up within a few weeks that bothers me. Like the oil companies are saying, “Ha ha! See what WE can do to YOU?”
Exactly. Gas prices in other Western nations have always been much higher than the US.
Imagine how Canadians would react if they took away their nationalized healthcare system and replaced it with the one we have here in the US?
Anytime you take away a long standing privelege, people will bitch and moan.
What really gets me is people complaining about gas being two dollars a gallon all the while paying 4 dollars a gallon for individual size bottled water.
Funny that nobody ever sees this as an argument not to base so much of our personal and economic lives on one limited commedety that we don’t control. But, you know, god forbid we build walkable communities and all.
Yeah, God forbid we expect the soldiers at the Air Base 14 miles west of town to not walk to get here. Since it’s the Pit, fuck off to anyone in rural areas that need to get here for supplies not available in the small towns they live in. Lazy fuckers should be walking! While we’re at it, fuck the US for being so goddamned large that public transport only works in large cities (i.e. not “communities”)
And yeah, we still have really cheap gas. snoopy dance
Seriously, personally I have problems walking, and while I do have a scooter for longer on-foot distances it’s certainly no car, it’s not meant for heavy use. So I’m stuck, I HAVE to drive distances other people could walk, if they’d get off their butts and do it.
And the idea of walkable communities is great, but where to start? Seriously.
How about walkable communities with decent public transportation systems?
A good public transit system reduces the distances that people need to walk to get somewhere, and provides a far more energy efficient and (if it’s well run) time efficient way of getting people around a city.
And duffer, you’re just being silly. While i don’t claim to speak for even sven, most people who call for a smaller reliance on cars and gas also recognize that there are some people who need to drive, and that this usually includes people in rural areas. My parents live on a small farm about twelve miles from the nearest town, and they couldn’t get by without their car. But the fact that some people will always need to drive doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try to design our communities in such a way that those who don’t want to drive can actually get around fairly safely and efficiently.
Yes, I understand that argument. What I’m trying to convey is unless you want to pay for housing in the city, some families either can’t afford it, or would have to drive to the country to work. Farmers, farm-hands, ranchers, et al. Frankly, having gas go up even a dollar a gallon wouldn’t get me worked up, since it would be another $14 a tank. And even my V6 gets gets around 30 mpg on the highway.
What I have a problem with is people in large metro areas assuming if they can ride a bike or take a bus to work, everyone can. That was all.
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