My goodness! One the the all-time best episodes: Marge vs. the Monorail - Wikipedia
‘Is there a chance the track might bend?’
‘Not on your life, my Hindu friend.’
You give the truckers too much credit. They made a few inept attempts at barracading depots, and the press ran riot, creating a run on fuel which drained the pumps.
Compare this to the Grangemouth stuff recently, where there were clearly plans in place for a potential closure, with fuel being brought in from elsewhere, and also with the media being kept completely updated about what was actually happening within the refinery and elsewhere. All lessons learnt from those ‘fuel protests’.
I’ll have more sympathy when they start driving with restraint and stop flooring it just to get to Felixstowe before the guy in front, creating half-mile queues behind them on the A14 as a result. Humph. Also when they actually look in their mirrors before pulling into the fast lane.
Riding bicycles, taking the train
They have amazing public transit. I’ve been around various parts of England and Hungary without a car, and the contrast is bewildering.
Most European countries are somewhat insulated against the rise the US has seen, due to the fact that oil is priced in US dollars and the Euro has risen against the dollar so much recently. Also the raw cost of crude oil is a far smaller component of the retail price of petrol there, as they already pay hugely higher prices due to high fuel taxes.
Here in Australia, as always we’re between the US and Europe - higher prices and taxes than the US but lower than Europe. Current prices here are getting towards AU $1.50 a litre (about US $5.60 per US gallon).
The fuel price just went up last night again so everyone was rushing to the stations to fill up. We also had a problem with some of the older pumps as the diesel price is now over R10,00 so the pumps needed 4 digits to display the cost and not all pumps can do that. (Our gas price has increased from R3,30 in 2000 to R9,50 in 2008 - an increase of almost 200%)
I think the main concern here is the knock on effect. Pretty much everything here gets transported by road so higher fuel prices eventually increase everything else from food to appliances.
Also driving small cars. When I was in US I was surprised not by number of SUVs and trucks - there’s a lot of them in Europe too - but by total absence of small cars.
Ah, you’re probably right. I must admit I didn’t pay enough attention to the details, since I was living in London with no car at the time. The point was that the protest had the desired effect, by whatever mechanism.
As to the truckers on UK roads - they are annoying, yes, but they scare me a lot lot less than those in the USA. Trucks in the USA are not limited to 55mph. What I’ve noticed here is that I have to deal with the same truck multiple times: when we’re heading downhill and it’s speeding toward me at 75mph, then again when we’re headed uphill and it’s doing 40.
Actually, that “I’m doing 55mph, and that other truck is only doing 53mph! I must overtake now!” thing is a serious PITA.
That’s only an option if you live in a major city. I don’t think there’s much any of us can really do about it, ultimately. It would take me hours to cycle to work, and I think it would look a bit strange having a horse tethered outside the store. 
(Public transport isn’t an option around here, alas)
Oh they do that here too. Particularly on the A34 near me, which is a relatively hilly four-lane dual carriageway - 54.5 mph vs. 55 mph means that an overtake is necessary, which leads to 2-mile tailbacks whenever it happens, which is a lot.
Anyway, to the OP, smaller engine sizes are a big thing here. And engine size is almost always a consideration when choosing a car.
I acknowledge that many Americans have to drive longer distances than us, and a larger engine vehicle can be more comfortable for long distances, but actually I can cruise hundreds of miles at 70-80 mph in my Ford Focus without ill effect.
I have just done an informal survey of my company parking lot, and of 55 cars, there is only one Jeep SUV, two Porsche Boxsters, one Toyota MR2, and a couple of larger (by our standards) BMWs, but all of the rest are compacts or sub-compacts, with a finger-in-the-air average engine capacity of about 1.5-1.6L.
My Focus is a 1.6L car, which I consider a mid-sized engine. My tank takes 50L, which costs me £55 (about $110), and that takes me 450 miles. Because of fuel cost, I am, however, considering downgrading to a 1.3.
Howeve, I get the impression that in the US, 2L would be considered a minimum engine size for a sub-compact.
I say “impression” because, perusing the US Ford or GM websites, I don’t see engine size mentioned on any of the vehicle specifications. I see gas mileage mentioned, which is clearly becoming a selling point, and I see haulage capacity and horse power, but the crucial payoff between performance and economy presented to the European buyer by the car’s engine size doesn’t seem to be a sales issue.
Of course the above observation is just anecdotal, but it does seem significant, on my small sample size, that engine size (is that still presented in cubic inches?) isn’t mentioned on these retail sites.
We in Germany, not much. Of course we moan a lot, but we always do that.
There is talk on reinstating the commuting-distance tax credit (which since 2007 only begins from the 30th kilometer of commuting distance). It is independant of the means of transport. If this is implemented I will again be able to claim 0,60 € per working day against taxable income for walking the 2 km from home to work and back. That would be ample for covering the pro-rated wear on new shoes.
My car sharing club had to raise the per-km rate from 0.27 €/km to 0.28 €/km (for the car type that I use mostly) last year, and may need to raise by 0.01 €/km this year. No biggie.
In my impression a lot of middle-class people are more concerned about the low dollar and the still looming threat of a serious financial crisis - there are more serious dangers to their livelihood. For the really low-income people food price inflation is a more serious problem - they usually don’t drive anyway.
Consider that “subcompact” here is a “B” sized car… that’s the Fiesta-sized thing to you and me. Until recently, for us, these are cheapie, throw-away cars that you only purchase because you can’t afford something better, or you buy them for your kids. I don’t know a single one that has an engine over 2.0 liters. Up into the C sized cars, say a Honda Civic, most of them are under 2.0 liters – I remember that both of my Civics had 1.6’s, for example. Once you move beyond that size, we need larger engines, or smaller engines with forced aspiration, just to be able to accellerate and maintain a speed. My car has a 4.6 liter engine for example, and when I step on the gas pedal, it goes, and it goes quickly; lots of torque. It probably weighs what two Civics weigh, and from personal experience, it’s about 20 times more comfortable – comfort also comes with size. To contrast, I spent a year in a Mondeo, which sucked. Good mileage, light weight car, and even had a V6, but it just wouldn’t move, it was cramped, the ride was not comfortable, and it wasn’t sporty-handling. This is a car that’s highly regarded for its size and comfort, and downgraded for its mileage in the UK! Bizarro world experience, indeed. (Given that, I’ll be first in line for the Fiesta when we release it in North America, but mostly because I’m cheap.)
The manufacturers’ web sites always list the engine sizes available; you just have to dig into the specifications. Engine size per se isn’t a selling point, because for gas-conscious buyers, the only thing that matters is the fuel economy. As a culture, we don’t shop based on engine size, pure and simple. For the non-gas-conscious buyers, we may think about engine size per se just a little bit (bragging rights) but torque per weight and horse power per weight are much more important when considering performance.
I think that engine sizes in liters (and cc for small engines) is almost universal these days. When speaking about classic cars, c.i. are still the standard, though. It’s just somehow wrong to stand around discussing a Pontiac 7.4 liter engine when everyone in their right mind knows you mean the Pontiac 455 (cubic inches).
I was attempting to use “sub-compact” to address a US audience. I must have got it wrong. 
Anyway, we don’t really use that nomenclature at all - nor do we use “A”, “B” or “C” to describe car size. They’re more like “family runaround” and stupid stuff like that.
Interesting that we consider the Mondeo to be a large car! That bit is obviously a cultural expectation, as I have driven a couple of Mondeos and find them perfectly roomy; and cultural expectations take a long time to change…
In most instances, people generally have some input on how close they live to their place of employment.
I had a Mondeo estate (stationwagon, I think is the US term) to drive for a couple of weeks and it seemed pretty big to me. I mean it was quite difficult to fit into parking spaces sometimes. Nevertheless, I think it is only considered spacious for its class (which would be something like “family cars”). The next class up (BMW 5, Merc E etc.) would be considered large, and BMW 7’s/ Merc S’s etc. very large.
They may not have much input on whether their employment is in a major city or not :rolleyes: