Our options: According to me.
- Continue to bitch about gas prices while bending over and taking it.
- Reduce the amount of gas that we use.
I'm not saying gas prices don't annoy me. They totally do. But if I get one more email about how all we need to do is stop buying gas from certain companies or on certain days, I'm going to flip out and use some really expensive gasoline to set the offending emailer on fire.
For starters, Jesse and I both work within 5 miles of our home. That hasn't always been the case, but I made a conscious decision that I was tired with all the commuting and all of the tank filling-up (I hate to stop for gas!). Additionally, I've decided not to use the air conditioning in my car while off the freeway. And I've been watching the way that I drive and I'm actually pretty good these days at not speeding. All of this helps. And it's actually making a difference in how far my tank goes. What can YOU do?
If you're not willing to change where you work or live, or your driving style, or your car, etc. I won't judge you. Unless you march around whining about the injustice of it all like a jerk. We all have choices. This is America!*
*This was actually used in the latest stupid email that I got. It was one of those powerpoint presentation-style emails where you have to page down through each screen. At one point, the author of said stupid email said that he/she didn't care that other countries were paying upwards of $5.00/gallon. It doesn't mean anything, after all, because: THIS IS AMERICA! (Apparently, they've written "gasoline under $2.00/gallon" into the Bill of Rights somewhere)
Jesse
Shauna
as far as I can tell gas is still cheaper than bottled water but I wouldn't recommend lighting someone on fire with it
The wife and I just bought a Toyota Yaris for that exact reason. 39 mpg highway / 35 city.
I still drive my 85 Dodge Ram, not so efficient, but you won't find me crying about how much it costs to fill my tank (not in public, anyway). My roommate and I were discussing those damn emails –abstaining from buying fuel one day in a week/month/year does nothing to decrease gas man's profits on the bottom line, as fuel will be purchased the day before or after "no gas" day anyway…for the love!
I stopped getting e-mail forwards a long time ago. Shortly after I set someone on fire for it. I highly recommend it. A+++WOULD BURN AGAIN!!
+s
Dana just got a (higher paying) job less than 2 miles from home. The primary motivation for looking was to find something he didn't have to drive to. So yay! For now. The sucky thing is we can never move without incuring a long commute since housing prices around here are ridiculous now.
A very important thing to consider is that studies have shown that for every dollar you save on housing costs by living in the burbs you'll spend 77 cents on direct transportation costs. This doesn't factor in your commute time either. Living near your place of employment just makes really good economic sense.
Those emails are a joke. Because if you think about it those ***DONT BUY GAS ON WED*** or something like that doesnt work. Because OK no one buys gas on this day but how many people are going to fill up on the next day or before. If you want to spend less on gas, by cars with good mileage, or take public transit. I have started taking UTA to the U since the stop is right across the street from my house
If public transportation was actually a feesible option for me, I would be willing to reduce the amount of driving I do for a bus or lightrail route to work. However, Sacramento currently does not make that a workable option for all areas of the county. In the meantime, I got a car that gets better gas mileage than my SUV did, still not as good as a Prius or Yaris, but better.
Yeah, we should be whining about public transportation in Sacramento, not gas prices! Seriously, when I worked for the University of Utah, I got to ride Trax for free. The stop was across the street from my house, and the train took me right up to the hospital, so I could go for days without touching my car. Now I work for UC Davis and I can't even take the shuttle from the medical center to the main Davis campus without paying more in fare and in a parking permit at the hospital than I pay for gas to drive out every day. I tell ya, for a place that's supposed to be pretty liberal, they sure don't care much about pollution and oil!
In Davis they expect you to ride a bike. Come on, Get with the program LOL
The authors of the angry-at-high-gas-prices emails are ignorant of how the economy actually functions, especially with respect to the petroleum industry. I wrote about this last year in this post. Another interesting tidbit that these folks fail to comprehend is that the price you pay at the gas station down the street has as much to do with how much oil people in China and India are using as it does with how much you and your neighbors are using. You don't like paying high gas prices? Fine. Show me a reasonable and cheaper alternative. And don't lecture me about the evils of living in the burbs. Like most other parents, I have little desire to raise my children in the middle of the big city.
Yeah, your blog entry was a lot better written and carefully constructed and whatnot. I mostly wanted to rant about the emails.
However, it IS possible to live AND work in the burbs. We don't want to live downtown either.
Being mugged and having my car stolen is very low on my "to do" list. Downtown, for the lose.
What if we went a different route for saving gas. How
much gas is spent for heating homes and providing electricity at the
power plants that provide for our homes. I know that solar panels start
a 3k, but it would seem to me that both the cost of the panels and the
dent in the use of gas would solve some of the problem. That and if everyone drove motorcycles (would solve both gas mileage problem and freakish highway parking lot problem 😉
Solar panels aren't *that* expensive. You can get 200W panels for about $1150. Add in the tax credits you're likely to get from the state and feds as well as the money you'll get from selling excess capacity back to the power company… and you're usually hitting a break-even point in about 5-7 years. Your mileage may vary.
Think Nukes!