Listen to your Rice Krispies, folks!

[jhetley]

Good MORNING America!

Those high gas prices? That's your Rice Krispies telling you to drive less, folks. Listen to them! Obey them!

Cut that crap about suspending gasoline taxes, cut that crap about price caps, cut that crap about jailing price gougers.

DRIVE LESS!

Like, don't drive that Hummer to the corner store for a sixpack. Park the fucker and share the ride with your neighbor. Or fucking WALK. You can walk a mile or two without cardiac distress. I'm sure you can.

Comments

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

However, in my area, it's unlikely that I could walk a mile or two without being hit by a car -- no shoulders, just ditches filled with weeds that have thorns.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

And I doubt if you drive a Hummer. (Could be wrong.)

A rant cannot be all things to all people.

;-)

[anisoptera.livejournal.com]

How about a "I want bike lanes, I want bus/tram service!" rant. ;)

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Even that one wouldn't reach universal status, I'm afraid. A lot of people can't ride bikes, including several on my friends list. A lot of areas can't support mass transit -- even our minimal local bus service requires subsidy, due to low population.

[betnoir.livejournal.com]

Oh, don't even get me started on my Public Transit in Los Angeles rant.

[betnoir.livejournal.com]

*sigh*

Works fine where you live.

Not where I do.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Hey, we don't have public transit worth a damn, and everything in Maine is a hundred miles away from anything else. We just don't go. It's a lifestyle choice we made thirty years ago.

[silme.livejournal.com]

I have no idea why Americans are complaining about fuel prices since they are so cheap there. Right now, in England, some petrol stations are charging over one pound a litre. Basically, at one pound a litre, that's approximately US $6.62 per American gallon. Prices are expected to continue to rise.

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

This is why I'm looking to pick up a bike trailer so that Pirate and Wen can go to the library with me on Saturdays. If there's enough haulage in it we can also go grocery shopping.

So... know of any stores or people looking to sell a bike trailer for cheap? Need it to hold at least 110 lbs and to have space for two smalls.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

What happens to people like us, whose income is largely dependent on travel? We have to drive to get to the events where we make money. Of course, that means we've always been aware of gas mileage, but still -- there's not an awful lot of cutback we can do.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

If you don't have "optional" driving, I think you're probably in the minority of the US car-owning public.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

Yes, there are probably some adjustments we can make in our local usage. This doesn't change my point, that those adjustments are going to be a minor percentage of our total driving, simply because our livelihood involves making trips of 4 hours or more on a regular basis. I ask again, where does that leave us?

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

"...where does that leave us?"

Well, if you _can_ raise your prices, that's one move. I doubt if you have that "inelastic" a market demand factor, just to throw economics terms around. Otherwise, you end up in the same place we'll be with heating oil this winter -- if we cut the thermostat back further, the pipes will freeze. So we'll grit our teeth and pay. And I'll caulk the windows _real_ good this fall.

But "adjustments" -- just one example from my day. I made a run out to the airport with a local engineer, his vehicle, his project, we doubled up rather than going separately. But he was driving his honking big SUV, gets maybe 12 mpg in city traffic, and he has a car as well. All told, his trip from his office door to back again probably burned a gallon more gas than if he'd taken his sedan, and that doesn't count his drive from home to office and back, probably another wasted gallon.

This, just by choosing to pull one set of car keys out of his pocket rather than the other. Multiply that across the late great United States....

[(Anonymous)]

Today on my lunch break I saw someone drive from an elderly/assited living complex out of the parking lot, 10 feet down the stree and into the parking lot of the Coffee Pot (a sandwich shop). I'm certain it would have taken less time to walk from door to door, even assuming limited mobility, and considering where he would have had to park at the coffe pot, it might even have involved less walking. I'm hoping that he was going on to somewhere else after that, because otherwise it made no sense at all to drive.

Michael

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

If that was coming from Boyd Place rather than Phillips-Strickland, that isn't even assisted living. It's apartments. Elderly, yes, but you're right, it would have been shorter to walk straight door-to-door. And I think I've seen benches out there if you need to stop for a rest in the middle....

I'm surprised he could find a parking place at the Coffee Pot. That's asking a lot.