After reading this article about consumers’ changing habits due to rising fuel prices, I can think of two big benefits:
- Families will return to driving sensibly-sized cars. Why a family needs to have a minivan or SUV with their kids is beyond me. Most families with two kids got away with a typical 4-door sedan back in the days of my youth. It meant judicious packing, yes, but it also meant teaching the kids that they couldn’t always take the entire toy chest with them to grandma’s house.
- People in the US will fall out of love with the automatic transmission – and their driving skills will improve as a result. I’ve always known how to drive a manual transmission, as both of my parents’ cars had a stick shift. In the UK, the majority of the cars are manual transmission, due in some part to the high petrol prices, as well as to the fact that their driving exam is much more thorough than the virtual license giveaway that we have here in the US. If more people start driving standard, they’ll not only learn some (in my mind) essential driving skills, but they’ll also reap the rewards of better fuel economy.
Just a couple of things to ponder…
adam
4 October 2005 — 10:31
While I know where you’re going with the mini-van thing, I have to say that having a family of six means we NEED a minivan. Not just to get the family around – although it wouldn’t be safe to do it otherwise – but just getting food for all the members of the household requires quite a bit of trunkspace.
I’m more irritated with the preponderance of SUV’s out there – especially the “tricked out” one’s that you know will never, EVER set tire off road – unless you count parking on the sidewalk or someone’s lawn. What’s the point? It’s just a status thing – and a colossal waste of gas.
As far as people becoming better drivers – don’t count on it. We now have a law that bans “distractions” (I believe that’s the word) in cars here in CT. That means that you can talk on the phone, but you have to use a hands-free device. Additionally, you’re apparently not allowed to eat and drive, shave and drive, read and drive, or put on makeup while driving. Yes, that’s right, I said READ and drive.
Now, I’m willing to admit that there are times when I talk on my phone without my headset – but I also would like to point out that when I am on the phone, I slow down a little bit (not too much, of course) and pay more attention to the cars around me – I know that the phone can be a distraction, so I try to compensate by being a safer driver.
Let’s face facts – there are people out there who can’t walk and chew gum. Putting them behind the wheel is the last thing that should be done, yet there they are – as you suggest, they are essentially giving out licenses like candy. That needs to change.
Of course, don’t get me started with the other things that should be licensed with a qualifying exam – marriage, having kids, owning a computer….
jank
4 October 2005 — 13:51
Station Wagon. (almost) All of the ability of a SUV to cart “stuff”, all of the gas mileage of a car.
Absent a brief dalliance with Jeeps in the cheap gas 90’s (spurred on by the Bloom County Sunday Cartoon featuring “The dog drinks unleaded from now on!”), I’m back on the wagon, quite literally. First car was a 1981 Datsun 510 wagon. A dozen high schoolers wherever we wanted to go. Then the jeep and truck interlude. First kid – wanted to go back to a wagon in 1999, but was limited in choice. Bought a Subaru. Super happy. AWD, 30 MPG – give it a shot.
I will, however, throw this out. For all the flopping and twitching over car mileage, there’s two far bigger consumers of petroleum out there that get glossed over – Air Travel and bottled water.
With Air Travel – yep, even packing hundreds of people on a flight, the sheer amount of petroleum that even a modern jet burns is staggering in terms of gallons per passenger-mile. Plus, jet exhaust is going straight up into the upper atmosphere, unlike auto exhaust which is at least at ground level, where photosynthesis happens. Why not hop on Amtrak’s Vermonter this winter to ski instead?
Bottled Water is one of my biggest pet peeves. First, one of the wonders of modern civil engineering is the US’ public water infrastructure. Imagine – a whole continent, pretty much, where you don’t have to worry about drinking the water. Sure, it might taste a little sulphury in parts, whatever. But it’s a huge public health success, and contributes greatly to keeping diseases like dysentary off our radars.
Bottled water – First, there’s the obvious excessive plastic packaging for something that comes right out of the tap in the office lunchroom, gym fountains, or watering spigots around the building. Where’s that plastic come from? Oil. (won’t even dwell on where it goes – most places don’t require recycling for water bottles).
Next there’s the tremendous amount of diesel burned to putting pallets of water on trucks to ship to the store, then the gas spent bringing it home. Water’s relatively dense – as in takes a lot of energy to move dense. Especially in areas that are serviced by gravity fed resivoirs (NYC in particular springs to mind), moving water via public infrastructure takes very little energy.
Couple of other things to ponder – it takes a lot of energy to convert a pile of iron ore into even a fuel efficient car. There might be a point at which a family is better off sticking with a gas guzzler for an extra 3 or 4 years until it’s truly worn out than turning a perfectly good car into scrap.
And the energy gains from Manual Trannys aren’t nearly what they were in the past. Just using the Jetta (PDF) I’m thinking about replacing my subaru with – same mileage manual or auto. Shoot, the Honda Civic has better highway mileage with an auto than a stick. Technology marches on.
adam
7 October 2005 — 11:29
Jank raises a good point and a similar peeve of mine – the bottled water. I try not to use it, or re-use the bottle whenever possible, but I see one application where it’s neccessary – disaster relief. I’d say that without the ease of transport (gas costs not withstanding) of bottled water, we’d have some bigger problems down in the Gulf Coast area right now if it wasn’t so readily available.
You’re also right about the jets. it was odd watching the President harp on about cutting fuel use for the short term, while watching him fly back and forth from D.C. to the Gulf area. Add to that the 10 or so support vehicles that travel with him and that he uses on the ground – all big honking S.U.V.’s – and Marine One, and the various other gas guzzlers involved in moving his body around the country – and you can see that he’s all talk, no action. If I saw him get on Amtrak to go visit the Gulf, then I’d reconsider things.
Oh, and doesn’t it hurt him to say that we should stop using so much gas when it actually helps line his own pockets? Last time I checked, he’s got money coming to him from his oil interests….