For all you PETROL & GAS whiners. Stop complaining that it's too expensive!

by nicolaou 73 Replies latest social current

• 

  dinah

  We live in a very rural area. Giving up your vehicle just isn't an option. People are parking their SUV's and buying more fuel efficient cars.

  Really, people should have seen this coming long ago. In the 70's Toyota and Nissan kicked GM's butt with fuel efficiency. Those little cars filled a need. Flash forward, people forget about the energy crisis (or maybe are too young to remember it). Now everyone wants to wail and moan because gas is expensive. What did you expect when so many people are driving larger vehicles with bad mpg ratngs?

  My car gets around 40 mpg. It used to cost me about $20 to fill it up, now it costs $40. That is much better than the $100 it costs my sister in law to fill up her Hemi truck.
• 

  JWdaughter

  I know it is more expensive elsewhere, but our country is BIG, and unless one lives in a huge city such as NY or Chicago, Boston, driving is how most get to work. In some areas, people have to drive an hour or more to work-daily. The bus system is woefully inconvenient-it would take me at least 3 buses to get to work, and about 2 hours vs. my 30 min drive. We work and live far apart-houses where jobs are are $$$ or in neighborhoods/school dist. that are undesirable. We do not have industry 'clustered' (the way we should) America was built on cheap fuel, and we are now paying for it. If we DON'T whine (and do more productive things than that!) then our economy will continue to take a beating.
  
  I can walk to get groceries-but that is it. I can't PAY for the groceries if we don't both work. My daughter can't get to college w/o driving (or same bus situation I would have). And we can be as careful as we can not to make extra trips, but there are different realities living in the states than you have elsewhere in the world (except some of Canada, perhaps).
  
  I am all for making wiser choices-and for not whining. But some of our states are as big as many European countries.
  
  I lived in NYC, and I know the kinds of choices that is made by living w/o a car also. It is limiting, but do-able(and kind of wonderful in many ways) in a town like that. I have lived IN very small towns w/o a car. Also do-able. But the minute I tried to go to college while living in that small town-Fuel prices hit my budget more than school or food expenses.
• 

  RubaDub

  It needs to be higher still to really persuade people/Detroit etc to change habits and cars etc. It still pisses me off at the local soccer moms driving their kids to the game in a fucking HUMMER - 7 miles per gallon

  Stilla ...

  Wow, I made much the same argument the other day and got chastized here. I mentioned my neighbor drives a Hummer (H2) to work every day for about a 60 mile round trip. I said how stupid (and thoughtless) it is to see this kind of waste of gas, especially when my main vehicle is a diesel VW Jetta.

  I was told that I must live in a "different" area than most people and people don't buy big SUVs to "tool around in."

  I'm sorry, but get on one of the main highways here in Miami during rush hour and about half of the vehicles are trucks or SUVs with one person driving. I can tell you, those people aren't working on farms.

  Rub a Dub

  PS ... my neighbor says he gets about 9 miles per gallon in his instead of the 7 you mentioned ... lol
• 

  OUTLAW

  Gas "is" too expensive!!..Oil company`s are making record profits and we are paying for it............I live in the wilderness..It`s a 1hr drive just to get to the general store and back to the ranch..You don`t survive here without a 4x4 truck.....4x4 trucks use a lot of gas........Out here a truck is a necessity..Not a fashion statement..................OUTLAW
• 

  Simon

  The way some of you talk you would think ... that we all shop at a little shop 5 doors down from our homes (my nearest supermarket is driving distance not walking and most of us have got rid of the pony and cart)

  I can remember when I was little that we'd often walk to the local corner shop.

  Nowadays, people drive to Tesco and buy too much food and then throw a great deal of it away from recent reports.

  We were sold this as progress and improvement but the fact is the overall, the little corner shop was cheaper and saved on unecessary traffic.

  Taken to the ultimate extreme these big companies would love nothing more than to have a single huge store in the middle of the UK that everyone has to drive to and stock up for 6 months. Think about it ... the more they can get customers driving to huge out of town stores the more money they save in transport costs but the more money in total is spent on transportation (than if the food is taken to more local shops / distribution centres).

  For some reason the world has bought into this 'bigger is better' for shops when it aint necessarilly so.
• 

  nicolaou

  Fair enough Outlaw. In South-East England there are no wildernesses but plenty of 4x4's.

  Madness.
• 

  What-A-Coincidence

  The American Dollar being devaluated is what causing all these prices to spike. So shall we not complain that the american dollar is being devaluated?
• 

  shamus100

  Well well well..

  I guess the way to a ten page thread now is just mention gas or oil, LOL.

  Homosexual threads are dead now....
• 

  Peppermint

  "In some areas, people have to drive an hour or more to work-daily"
  
  Its not so different here JWDaughter. Drive into London from the commuter say 30-40 miles from central London, as many do and 1-2 hours each way is the norm, and of course you can stick the congestion charge on top of that - but thats another story.
• 

  RubaDub

  Well well well..

  I guess the way to a ten page thread now is just mention gas or oil, LOL.

  Homosexual threads are dead now....

  Shamus ......

  You just took away my idea of a new thread about the effects of high gas prices on the homosexual community.

  Rub a Dub