# Wasting fuel as a criminal offense? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 9, 2022, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wasting-fuel-as-a-criminal-offense/960762 "2022-03-09T17:39:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wasting-fuel-as-a-criminal-offense/960762/41 "2022-03-09T21:55:08Z")
Not the second sentence? That one we should ignore? ---
**Author:** ![GreysonCarlisle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@GreysonCarlisle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreysonCarlisle)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wasting-fuel-as-a-criminal-offense/960762/42 "2022-03-09T21:57:11Z")
Ignore it or don’t. It is brutally stupid to drive across the country and then circle the beltway over and over during a fuel crunch, but no, I don’t think anybody should be arrested for doing it. At least not under our current circumstances. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wasting-fuel-as-a-criminal-offense/960762/43 "2022-03-09T21:59:11Z")
> [@GreysonCarlisle](#): > > It is brutally stupid to drive across the country and then circle the beltway over and over during a fuel crunch, but no, I don’t think anybody should be arrested for doing it. Agreed on all counts. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wasting-fuel-as-a-criminal-offense/960762/44 "2022-03-09T21:59:26Z")
You want a real answer? We’ll probably have to move to a place technologically where all normal transportation is electric. At this point gas-powered vehicles will be considered nothing more than a hobby and they will be unable to be licensed to operate on primary roads, much like a non-street legal race car. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wasting-fuel-as-a-criminal-offense/960762/45 "2022-03-09T22:21:34Z")
> [@TheGunIsMightierThanThePen](#): > > Personally, I feel the purposeful wasting of fuel is distasteful - but then again, these people paid for the fuel, it’s not like they stole it, so in a way I guess they’re entitled to waste it if they really wanted to How about a nice fungibility analogy? Bubba’s farm and mill churns out 100 tons of flour, which is where this here town gets all its flour. He sells it to us for fifty cents a pound. This year, Tommy-Bob was especially flush, so he bought 90 tons worth of the Bubbaflour and used it to dust his children’s playground equipment (makes the slide faster and the monkey bars more fun) and other quirky things. Now the bakery in town is selling bread for $60 a loaf (and they are damn small loaves). You simply cannot waste your gas in a vacuum – you are also wasting _my_ gas. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wasting-fuel-as-a-criminal-offense/960762/46 "2022-03-09T22:27:15Z")
I don’t believe you understand how war rationing actually works. If your household is limited to X rations of butter and Y rations of flour, the government doesn’t know, or care, what you do with it. You could bake bread for the war orphans, cookies for the bake sale at the local Evangelical Church, or fancy pastries for the Republican soiree at the country club. Same with gasoline. You get Z gallons per month. They’re not telling you what to use it for. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wasting-fuel-as-a-criminal-offense/960762/47 "2022-03-09T22:37:50Z")
Given the general level of reading comprehension at the SDMB, if I post something nobody seems to understand I generally find the fault is with my post. If board rules didn’t prohibit it, I could post an OP in Latin or Esperanto and quickly receive replies from Dopers who know those languages. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wasting-fuel-as-a-criminal-offense/960762/48 "2022-03-09T22:43:16Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > If you mean what government changes would be required to pull this off, then what first needs to happen is for the Constitution to be ripped up, and an authoritarian government instituted. > [@k9bfriender](#): > > I do not think that it could happen without severe changes to our government and society What if it were done by rationing gas? We’ve done that already; in WWII. Now admittedly, we did some other things in WWII that were indeed behaviors of an authoritarian government, even though they were judged constitutional at the time. But the Constitution was not considered to have been ripped up; and I really don’t think that the gas rationing, in itself, caused severe changes to our government and society. > [@DocCathode](#): > > Given the general level of reading comprehension at the SDMB, if I post something nobody seems to understand I generally find the fault is with my post. I’'m not having any problem at all understanding the OP. I suspect that most people who are also understanding it don’t want to get tangled up in what’s turned entirely into an argument about whether laws discouraging wasting gas would destroy the governmental and societal structure of the USA. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wasting-fuel-as-a-criminal-offense/960762/49 "2022-03-09T22:45:49Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > What if it were done by rationing gas? We’ve done that already; in WWII. It happened in the 1970s, as well. The national speed limit was also lowered in an effort to reduce fuel consumption. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wasting-fuel-as-a-criminal-offense/960762/50 "2022-03-09T22:52:38Z")
> [@Johnny\_Bravo](#): > > It happened in the 1970s, as well I recall even/odd days for purchasing gas. That’s similar to rationing, but not what is usually thought of by that term. Were there places where people were actually limited to x gallons per month? ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wasting-fuel-as-a-criminal-offense/960762/51 "2022-03-09T22:58:55Z")
Okay, -trying- not to fight the hypothetical of the first sentence of the OP, which was indeed compromised by the rest of the OP, what would it take to make wasting fuel a criminal offense? IMHO, it would probably take, a bare, pre-tax cost that has become so prohibitive that basic transportation of goods is becoming unsupportable. I don’t mean just ‘more’ expensive, such as we saw/are still seeing due to covid, but untenable. At which point, we’d be rationing all available fuel, probably on the basis of emergency, military, and high priority need. I suspect we’d long since have phased out private vehicles as even a possibility other than possibly emergency vehicles. Rationing is a viable, yet insanely restrictive option in terms of the government defining specific wants and needs that justify the allocation of rare resources. Normally (in the US), that falls to market forces. When gas was this pricey last, people started examining the alternatives quickly, whether it be other fossil fuels such as shale oils, fracking, or (best of all when considering environmental issues) social and technological change to our underlying assumptions. If fuel remains scarce, it gives greater incentive to alter our usage patterns or underlying technology. Whether it be better mass transit, more electric/hybrid vehicles (which of course have their own issues), an additional emphasis on the COVID work-from-home strategies, etc. So yes, rationing is possible, but such a drastic step that I think the thread is right in considering it to be so far down the list of viable options as to be, if not irrelevant, an ‘end-game’ scenario. ETA - to get to a criminal offense for ‘wasting fuel’, we’d need the situation to be dire enough that the political powers that be, with enough popular support, manage to create and enforce some rather draconian, if legal, policies. COVID taught us that @ 1% fatality worldwide pandemic was NOT enough for much-less drastic measures on a National/Federal level. So I suspect we will have to be at a much more serious inflection point than we are now to even approach it. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wasting-fuel-as-a-criminal-offense/960762/52 "2022-03-09T22:59:32Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > Were there places where people were actually limited to x gallons per month? If we use that as the definition, then I suppose it wasn’t. But I’ve always heard it referred to as gasoline rationing and a cursory Google search will find plenty of articles doing the same. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wasting-fuel-as-a-criminal-offense/960762/53 "2022-03-09T23:05:35Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > But the Constitution was not considered to have been ripped up; and I really don’t think that the gas rationing, in itself, caused severe changes to our government and society. The OP is talking about more than gas rationing. > [@thorny\_locust](#): > > an argument about whether laws discouraging wasting gas would destroy the governmental and societal structure of the USA. It’s not laws _discouraging_ wasting gas that are the problem, that’s fine, I’m for some of them. I’m 100% in favor of substantial hikes to the gas tax, and I could see rationing being used, though I would rather avoid it if possible, hoping that the gas tax decreases use enough that it is not necessary. It’s laws _criminalizing_ wasting gas, as stated directly by the OP, that’s the problem. Criminalizing going anywhere but work, school, the doctor, the grocery store, and possibly some other places yet to be determined by the OP, (but not the dog park or groomer). I don’t see how that plays out in a free and fair society. ---
**Author:** ![GreysonCarlisle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@GreysonCarlisle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreysonCarlisle)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wasting-fuel-as-a-criminal-offense/960762/54 "2022-03-09T23:10:10Z")
> [@ParallelLines](#): > > Okay, -trying- not to fight the hypothetical of the first sentence of the OP, which was indeed compromised by the rest of the OP, what would it take to make wasting fuel a criminal offense? An excellent post. Thank you. I don’t necessarily agree that it would be an “end game” scenario, though. Granted, things would be bad, and we would be in that position not out of choice but out of necessity. It is my understanding–and as always, I could be wrong–that during the major wars, you could be fined or maybe even jailed for wasting resources, like not taking your old tires to recycling centers or discarding used copper. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wasting-fuel-as-a-criminal-offense/960762/55 "2022-03-09T23:13:39Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > It’s laws _criminalizing_ wasting gas, as stated directly by the OP, that’s the problem. Criminalizing going anywhere but work, school, the doctor, the grocery store, and possibly some other places yet to be determined by the OP, (but not the dog park or groomer). I don’t see how that plays out in a free and fair society. I don’t see anything in the OP about criminalizing going any specific places. Certainly laws against wasting gas could be written that way, and certainly they could be written in ways that were unconstitutional and/or totalitarian. But laws against excessive idling, or driving around and around in circles, or using more than x gallons of gas per week, or selling gas guzzlers, while they’d all have their own potential complications (which could probably be dealt with by writing them carefully), wouldn’t be laws that were “Criminalizing going anywhere but work, school, the doctor, the grocery store, and possibly some other places yet to be determined by the OP”. Again, I don’t see anything of that sort in the OP. And the mention of the convoys doesn’t require it – the DC convoy is currently not going anywhere in particular, it’s just going around and around in circles; the Canadian convoy was AAUI continuing to use considerable gas after it got where it was going. ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wasting-fuel-as-a-criminal-offense/960762/56 "2022-03-09T23:17:53Z")
> [@GreysonCarlisle](#): > > It is my understanding–and as always, I could be wrong–that during the major wars, you could be fined or maybe even jailed for wasting resources, like not taking your old tires to recycling centers or discarding used copper. Ah, but see, I think you’re touching on a key point. The scenario you mention is key, “during major wars.” There we agree - we need a sufficiently desperate situation, to the point that there is the political will to enforce what is likely to be an insanely unpopular measure. And to be truly effective, it would need to be national/federal, or people would, where distances/wealth permit, drive across a state/county/etc boarder to buy elsewhere. We can all draw the point differently, and I certainly drew it towards the extreme end, but the last few years of pushback against even the most basic COVID prevention measures (wearing a cloth mask is too much, really?), leaves me very pessimistic towards any enforcement of such measures. ---
**Author:** ![GreysonCarlisle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@GreysonCarlisle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreysonCarlisle)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wasting-fuel-as-a-criminal-offense/960762/57 "2022-03-09T23:23:36Z")
> [@ParallelLines](#): > > We can all draw the point differently, and I certainly drew it towards the extreme end, but the last few years of pushback against even the most basic COVID prevention measures (wearing a cloth mask is too much, really?), leaves me very pessimistic towards any enforcement of such measures. True enough. I am also assuming a government that governs in good faith and abides where practical to the emergency policies of the recent past. Unlike what we often have today. ---
**Author:** ![GreysonCarlisle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@GreysonCarlisle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreysonCarlisle)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wasting-fuel-as-a-criminal-offense/960762/58 "2022-03-09T23:28:21Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > I don’t see anything in the OP about criminalizing going any specific places. There wasn’t. That was presented later as an example of recent restrictions that were enacted in some places during quarantine. I think that unnecessary travel would be somehow defined in the legislation, and if things got worse, that definition would grow more and more broad. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wasting-fuel-as-a-criminal-offense/960762/59 "2022-03-09T23:31:01Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > You simply cannot waste your gas in a vacuum – you are also wasting _my_ gas. You just described socialism/communism in a nutshell. The fundamental mistake is that it’s NOT “your gas”. You’re entitled to precisely zero gas. You’re have access only to the the gas/flour you can afford. If someone corners the market…like on say, insulin…everyone else suffers the consequences. Plenty has been said about the evils of capitalism, but it’s the system we have. I’ll reserve any other commentary for another time. ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wasting-fuel-as-a-criminal-offense/960762/60 "2022-03-09T23:47:24Z")
> [@GreysonCarlisle](#): > > > [@ParallelLines](#): > > > > We can all draw the point differently, and I certainly drew it towards the extreme end, but the last few years of pushback against even the most basic COVID prevention measures (wearing a cloth mask is too much, really?), leaves me very pessimistic towards any enforcement of such measures. > > True enough. I am also assuming a government that governs in good faith and abides where practical to the emergency policies of the recent past. Unlike what we often have today. Okay, now -that’s- a hypothetical that would be hard NOT to fight. (Not making fun of you, just the world in which we live) To simplify all the arguments though, what I think it would take is a realization, on a gut level, of BOTH the large majority of the populace AND the the political powers that be, that the scarcity is real, eminent, and likely perpetual. To borrow a hypothetical situation from a discussion from many years ago: Israel, being destroyed by it’s more numerous neighbors, implements a local MAD via it’s nuclear weapons. Bam, over 50% of the worlds proven petrochem reserves are gone or at least inaccessible. That sort of short, sharp shock, would likely create such an awareness and will. Even quickly rising prices (which just fell as UAE suggested increasing production) is the classic boiling frog scenario, along with climate change. A different option that _might_ work (again, trying to work with the theory) is what seems to be working for legal MJ. Implement it where the political and popular will is already sufficient, and if it proves viable, slowly roll out to other areas. I’m specifically working with laws that define specific forms of fuel wasting (coal roll, highly inefficient/polluting small engines such as already being banned, other suggestions welcome) rather than a general rationing. Using CA as an example, where there’s arguably the popular and political will to at least make an effort, and see if how many and successful challenges ensue. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wasting-fuel-as-a-criminal-offense/960762.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wasting-fuel-as-a-criminal-offense/960762.md?page=4)