PS: My save gas sign only
 

PS: My save gas sign only lasted for one day, but I have been driving without as much blow-by from people and more tagger onners. I've always liked the idea of make a small sticker of a pump for the front and back of the car so you can see who is friendly to your cause, :p

What about those who drive
 

What about those who drive EVs and/or cars run on SVO?

Re: What about those who drive
 

those who are rich or educated enough? those never represent the masses and you know the masses make a difference, not just a few beings opposing how others have done things a certain way.

Most are willing to just accept it and sacraface other things to drive.

Quote:What about those who
 

Well if they don't want to drive 55 with me I don't see a reason to team up with them on the roads, so why ought they to have a sticker?

Truck Country
 

I'm hailing from Alberta, Canada and this truly is truck country. My little Metro often sticks out like a sore thumb...if you can see it at all. I felt wasteful enough driving my gas guzzler Aerostar to work when I had nothing else, I don't know how these guys with F350 V10s or Hemi-powered Rams sleep at night.

Overall it seems as if most people just don't care at all. Maybe they're all just demented...or maybe I'm the sick one...I actually enjoy driving a Metro...

Fortunately I've been seeing a number of other Swift-clones on the road lately and a lot of Toyota Yaris's around (even though the Echo got better mileage).

I'd enjoy driving a Metro...
 

I'd enjoy driving a Metro...







...if I shoved a smallblock V8 into it!

Re: people are starting to slow
 

The solution is to make it *SO* expensive to drive an H2, that even the rich decide not to. We should up the tax on fuel where demand drops by 50%, and eliminate the budget and trade deficits by doing so, with the corresponding reduction in demand.

If we don't do it ourselves, the laws of supply and demand will put the price there anyway, filling the coffers of OPEC and the oil companies, and compounding our budget and trade deficits, as if they weren't already bad enough. Keep in mind that the rest of the world now has an infinite supply of U.S. dollars to buy oil with, for as long as the OPEC folks will accept them.

The longer we delay reducing demand, the worse the result will be. Failure to reduce demand quickly will put us in 3rd world status within 2 or 3 years as the dollar turns to paper.

it won't be easy
 

American families seem to be hurting very badly with the current prices. The tax on fuel is not going to hurt the rich, it will hurt the middle class much more, but it will reduce demand indeed.

I do agree that we need to reduce demand. But with elections both parties would want to improve their image, so I think there will be a price ceiling to fuel costs.

Re: it won't be easy
 

Its no longer about "image". Both parties are absolutely worthless, having allowed us to get to where the situation is as desperate as it is today.

A price ceiling will just result in shortages, gas lines, gas on even/odd days, and a nasty recession just like it did in the 70's. Given a price ceiling, there will be no incentive for anyone to reduce consumption, and no incentive for anyone to increase production, either.

China, India, Japan, Korea, Russia and Europe literally have TRILLIONS of US dollars they can and are using to buy oil or gasoline and there isn't enough oil and gas being produced for everyone to have all they please. So the laws of supply and demand say that if you don't increase the supply, the price must rise until demand drops. If we just print more dollars, they become worth less oil, gas, or whatever other commodity you'd like to measure them against. That's what's been happening.

The reality is that consumption needs to drop by a huge percentage so that instead of their being an oil and gas shortage, there is instead an oil and gas glut. Then the price will drop. If you suggest a rationing scheme by which we reduce consumption on the order of 30%, that would solve it, but recognize that rationing schemes don't necessarily end up with rational results. American families are ABSOLUTELY GLUTTONOUS consumers of gas and oil. Count the SUV's, vans, trucks, and high horsepower cars vs the miserly little cars on the road some day. I'd bet 2/3 of the SUV's you see have only 1 or 2 people in them, and no gear requiring such a guzzling behemouth to drag around 95% of the time. Yeah, there's our soccer mom, driving 40 or 50 mi to take her kid to soccer practice, or dad doing the 70 or 100 mi round trip to work. But why do they drive these huge beasts to get there and back? Status. Pure and simple. Be cool, drive a Hummer or an Escalade. Raise the price to $5.00 a gallon and they will ditch their Hummers and buy miserly Saturns like me. Hey, I have a big van and a race car, but my big van only leaves the driveway to tow the trailer to a race 3 or 4 times a year. In the past, that was a dozen times a year. The higher the price of gas, the more I avoid driving it any distance. I use it when I need to, otherwise I drive my Saturn.

In summary, consumption needs to drop dramatically or this nation is going to quickly collapse to where your dollars "aren't worth a Continental".

All true. It seems that as
 

All true.

It seems that as with all addictions, the addict won't seek change until he stops denying the problem.

An addict's denial never stops until it hurts the addict badly enough - no matter who else it hurts.

It won't hurt addicts badly enough to change when we act as enablers by sharing the costs as we do now.