Commuting - Cars' Approval rating falling

http://www.dispatch.com/national-story.php?story=dispatch/2006/08/02/20060802-A3-04.html (http://http://www.dispatch.com/national-story.php?story=dispatch/2006/08/02/20060802-A3-04.html)
Okay. So 3% percent of people think gas prices make driving a chore when gas is $3/gal. At this rate, nobody will be driving when gas hits $100/gallon
Link looks broken, here's the site
http://www.dispatch.com/national-story.php?story=dispatch/2006/08/02/20060802-A3-04.html

Folks alway kvetch about gas prices and driving. The real poll is if anyone is really doing anything different, such as using public transportation or riding their bikes. The truth is that people vote in favor of petroleum powered transportation every time they fill up.

If only we could power cars on all of the hot air people spew about gas prices then our problems would be solved.

I cost me a 1.49 to fill up today (I love sobe especially on hot days on the bike )

We live in Europe for now. I do not sense Europeans have this same disappointment with their cars. I think it's that cars have their place, and locals can temper their car use with mass transit and more sane housing patterns.
I think cars are still popular here , even tho gas prices are almost double those in the US. I Think, Americans would still love their cars, if they were not so enslaved to them.

I Think, Americans would still love their cars, if they were not so enslaved to them.

+1 to that. slavery in america has been in stealth mode since we abolished it after the civil war. we've just been using different kinds of whips and generally choosing everyone from the middle class down to be the slaves.

+1 to that. slavery in america has been in stealth mode since we abolished it after the civil war. we've just been using different kinds of whips and generally choosing everyone from the middle class down to be the slaves.

A bit of a tenuous correlation there. It definitely does a disservice to those who actually suffered under slavery, and fought such a brutal war to abolish it, to compare it with the conditions of even the worst workers today. The poor are getting poorer, but they are not starving or dying of typhoid and cholera while they are doing it. Usually their watching satelite television.

ooOoooOoooOo! Is this like bush's approval rating? :p

Anyhow, most of us whine and moan. Then do nothing about it.

I cost me a 1.49 to fill up today (I love sobe especially on hot days on the bike )

+10 !!!! :)


Anyhow, most of us whine and moan. Then do nothing about it.

I did... I haven't bought gas in three months. :)

oh... wait... I had to put gas in the U-haul when I moved last weekend, but other than that, I haven't put gasoline into anything in over three months. :) :) :)

We are not Europe. Our love of the car is tied to a sense of freedom, adventure and the idea that we can just pick up and go. It'll take a bit of time, but smaller, more fuel efficient cars will again displace the gas guzzlers just like they did in the early 70's and the Big 3 will probably come close to bankruptcy again because they're too heavily invested in gas guzzlers and not flexible fuel engines.

you can bet the oil companies will come out almost immediately with alternate fuel engines as soon as the petroleum runs out. they've got the technology waiting, that's my theory, anyway! either way I won't care because I have 3 bikes and lots of baskets/panniers/bags. I do love my truck though for long trips and hauling large items.

I wonder what Orwell would think of expressing the contraction "they're" as the possessive pronoun "their." Not to run grammar smak, but anyone who invokes Eric Blair's admonition to write well is asking for it.

I think you will see cities of the future when the petroleum runs out with tubes between buildings and fancy people movers and cars being lifted high out of the way while delivery trucks and people mill about below with the high rise highways only people that must drive like people that live far away and drive in to designated cites and then their are like 100 sites arround the city where everyone parks there cars and walks into the buildings they work at and there are roads for delivry trucks to go from building to building and they will run off biodiesel and electric motors

I wonder what Orwell would think of expressing the contraction "they're" as the possessive pronoun "their." Not to run grammar smak, but anyone who invokes Eric Blair's admonition to write well is asking for it.

Thank you for pointing that out for me. My only excuse is that I have a five month old daughter (see avatar) who kept me up until 3 am last night.
I can only say that I will try and do better.

There, their, and they're: ryanparrish almost got a trifecta.

We are not Europe. Our love of the car is tied to a sense of freedom, adventure and the idea that we can just pick up and go. It'll take a bit of time, but smaller, more fuel efficient cars will again displace the gas guzzlers just like they did in the early 70's and the Big 3 will probably come close to bankruptcy again because they're too heavily invested in gas guzzlers and not flexible fuel engines.
Jyossarian. Even if cars are totally clean and fuel efficient, we still have the problem of choked freeways and an inefficient means of getting to work. I say the primary cause of the all to common road rage is not the $70 it takes to fill a gas tank, but the fact that gas is going up into smoke as one travels in single digits.
Something accounts for the anti social behavior displayed by road ragers and it is not the price of gas.

The price of fuel (and we are at about US$1.85 a litre here) has certainly changed the way i drive. On the rare occasions i have to, i stick to a slower speed to improve fuel economy with no hard acceleration and coasting to a stop where possible. The less i drive, the more i dislike doing so when i have to and have taken on longer and longer journeys by bicycle in order to avoid driving. I am currently considering whether a new job that has come up 28 miles away is too far to cycle commute every day, all year round.

Petrol price here in Oz is about $1.07 US per litre. Not desperate yet but enough to question whether car trip is necessary.

You know...I realize that I'm a newbie here...but I gotta say...its going to take a little time for me to NOT want to take the car to work in the mist of a really bad morning thunderstorm or a snowstorm putting out and inch of snow an hour and -10 degree windchill. :D

Robe. Midwest snowstorms. I rather not drive either. Hate that slip slidding around. Dangerous. Remember once going down the Edsel Ford Expressway in Detroit with the rear pointing in the dircetion of traffic. We were lucky somehow, hardly anyone else was on the road.
I thought doing donuts was for large parking lots. The road surface was pure frozen glass.
I'd prefer to take the subway,if you have to go out at all.

You know...I realize that I'm a newbie here...but I gotta say...its going to take a little time for me to NOT want to take the car to work in the mist of a really bad morning thunderstorm or a snowstorm putting out and inch of snow an hour and -10 degree windchill. :D

The windchill and heat index are a bunch of bs so don't let those scare you. The news will say -10 but it won't be that bad, trust me :D . As for this heat index, the weather channel said it was an apparant 104 here in ohio yesterday, I was out working in my garden all day (summer vacation day! woohoo) and I could tell it was only in the low 90's.

The windchill is worse though it can be above freezing and they'll tell me its going to feel like its 0 degrees out. Maybe if you are soaking wet and naked, but if you are dressed even moderately well it has to be pretty cold before you'll be cold while excersising.

I think in the middle of winter and the middle of summer the forecasters run out of stuff to talk about so they invent these "disasters" to make us all freak out and watch their advertisments.

You know...I realize that I'm a newbie here...but I gotta say...its going to take a little time for me to NOT want to take the car to work in the mist of a really bad morning thunderstorm or a snowstorm putting out and inch of snow an hour and -10 degree windchill. :D


Remember, in the utopian world of the car-bashers, the temperature is always a balmy 78F. Nobody needs to buy groceries, stuff just shows up at stores and vacations spots are just around the corner.

Dobber. GUess, as to your point. That must be why all the utopians are moving to San Diego.

Had to drive downtown last night for a business dinner.
Mileage = 10.5 miles one-way
Time spent stuck on the 520 = 1.25 hours
Personal approval rating for cars = negative eleventy jillion

I was stuck there in the mire of vehicles, and trying my best not to glance to the right and see people zipping along the bike trail. If there was a place for me to wash up and change, I could have ridden my bike along the SRT and B-G Trail and gotten downtown faster.

A bit of a tenuous correlation there. It definitely does a disservice to those who actually suffered under slavery, and fought such a brutal war to abolish it, to compare it with the conditions of even the worst workers today. The poor are getting poorer, but they are not starving or dying of typhoid and cholera while they are doing it. Usually their watching satelite television.


Not really, they are going home, eating, going to bed immediately after, and then waking up to another 12 hours shift, 7 days a week.

Most manufacturing jobs I have seen were prety much borderline slavery....you get less than your legal requirements for breaks, the working conditions are hazardous, the pay is low enough that you can't save up much to afford to go look elsewhere or get an education, etc.

Yes it's not living in squalor, but when the pursuit of happiness is squashed by being physically unable to hunt for a new job, and being paid so litle that you can't save neough to go on a job hunt...then it's not very far from slavery either. I see this everyday out here.

We are not Europe. Our love of the car is tied to a sense of freedom, adventure and the idea that we can just pick up and go. It'll take a bit of time, but smaller, more fuel efficient cars will again displace the gas guzzlers just like they did in the early 70's and the Big 3 will probably come close to bankruptcy again because they're too heavily invested in gas guzzlers and not flexible fuel engines.

As long as the profit margins are 12 to 1 (think thousands), SUVs vs compact cars, The Big Three will go kicking and screaming into bankruptcy. Don't worry, our Government will bail them out.