I’ve only scanned the thread, but here are a few thoughts anyway.
As someone said, taxes are the reason people in other countries pay more for a gallon of gas than we do. People in other countries tend to pay higher taxes overall than we do, I think. But they get something for their money. Better public transportation, less expensive health care, a more generous social safety net, incentives to businesses to provide more paid vacation time for employees…
I’ve been to the following European cities: London, Oostende, Brussels, Milan, Florence, Venice, Vienna, Munich, Copenhagen and Uppsala. In every one of these cities I could get around very easily on foot or on one of their excellent buses or subways.
When I lived in Lancaster, CA: ‘Public transportation? What public transportation?’
When I lived in L.A.: I used buses when I had to. They were often crowded and I hated waiting for them. Since I lived on the West Side, MetroRail was not an option. We didn’t have it. You know that song Nobody Walks In L.A.? That sums it up for many areas. Most neighbourhoods have markets, restaurants, fast food places, etc. that are within a mile or two – easy walking distance. But getting out of a neighbourhood and getting to another part of the city – something I found very easy in London, Munich and Stockholm, for example – pretty much requires a car, motorcycle or scooter.
Bellingham and Birch Bay, WA: I see Whatcom County mini-buses in the neighbourhood frequently. I should find out their schedule. Downtown Bellingham is easy to walk around in. It’s a nice old city. You can take a bus to other parts of the city. Of course, the population is only about 65,000 or so. Not very big. There’s not much in Birch Bay. I can walk to the (very small) corner market, a Thai restaurant, a nice restaurant with a ‘beach café’ attached, a sushi place, and… that’s about it.
I’ve only been to the East Coast twice, and then only on business. We had a rental car. Still, I understand that the East has a fairly good public transportation system. In the West, things are spread out and public transportation sucks. The supermarket is five or six miles away. I did buy a bicylce in L.A., but I found out that my knees (which I destroyed in high school) did not permit me to ride because my right knee won’t bend far enough without raising the seat such that I cannot comfortably reach the pedals. I only go to the Post Office (also four or five miles away) when I’m sending out or picking up a package. Neither the grocery store nor the Post Office are really feasible on a bicycle in my case, even if I had good knees. My bank is over 20 miles away. So the problem as I see it is that most places in this country do not have decent – let alone good – public transportation, and things tend to be rather spread out.
I would very much like to have a Prius or another car that is more efficient than what I have. But the reason I got the Cherokee in the first place was because I could not carry my gear. With the Cherokee I can carry a couple of large tripods, a jib, two or three broadcast-sized cameras in cases, monitor, sandbags, grip bag, camera dolly, track, miscellaneous items, *and/i] a passenger. I can’t see carrying all of that on the Yamaha. Oh, and I need something to pull the boat, too. But it would be nice to have an efficient car that I could use when I’m not on a shoot, and that would be drier than the motorcycle.
Do I object to high fuel prices? Yes. My income is very spotty, since I only make money when someone hires our services. My Cherokee doesn’t get very good mileage and I can’t afford to go out and buy a Prius. But I would support higher taxes – and thus more expensive fuel – if the money went toward public transportation. I don’t mind taxes, but I hate hearing of the record profits the oil companies are making at the expense of people who must drive.
Americans like their gas-guzzling cars too much. I remember back the 1973 Oil Embargo. I wasn’t old enough to drive, but dad and mom bought Toyotas. (Dad’s previous car was a 7-litre Ford Galaxie 500 that got 8 mpg.) I remember seeing more Japanese cars on the roads. I remember television advertising that stated EPA-estimated fuel efficiency. I remember that while fuel prices continued to climb, they did not climb as much as they have in the past year. I remember that with cheap gas, people started buying more SUVs and mileage claims disappeared from prominence in advertising. I remember seeing mileage figures dropping and dropping.
We have short memories. We bought SUVs even after having lived through the years with fuel efficiency was King. Now the pendulum is swinging the other way. People are shocked by the high price of fuel. We will start to see more and more vehicles that burn less and less fuel. Relative demand will decline and prices will become more stable. I only hope that people will remember the past this time, and not buy gas hogs when the panic ends.