At 4:00pm this afternoon the GA governer ask all school systems to take early snow days on Monday and Tuesday in an effort to conserve gas.

Most all counties have complied to this request and those that intially said they would not comply I am sure will by Monday.

However, I believe he is missing the point.

Now instead of just driving to school and driving home that day people will probally be driving to get other things done or they will drive somewhere for enjoyment.
What are parents of elementary children going to do? (I bet they will have to drive them to daycare or to a babysitters rather than putting them on the bus.)

The inital effect of this request has caused long line at gas stations and people topping off their tanks. (Again)

To make an impact people need to change their lifestyles by using alternative methods of transportation or carpooling.

Taking two snow days off is just a short term answer.

It snows in GA?

This is the wackiest thing I've heard all day. Can't the kids take school buses, ride their bikes, skateboards, rollerblades or walk? And does this apply to K-12 or just through grammar school?

Not to hijack the thread but somewhat related.....
Wacky politicians, people who just dont get alternative trans etc, etc...
A Fox Propaganda dissemination agent was interviewing McCain last night
about government pork and asked McCain if he would stop funding for bicycle
and ped walkways to try to cut pork spending in Az and McCain said
resoundingly he would have no problem doing that.
What type of thought process or lack thereof, would lead someone to think
that making it difficult for non-oil using modes of transit in this time is a good idea ?

I saw it snow about 4 years ago. Usually we see freezing rain. Which we rarely see.
The Gov. requested that all public school system take "inclement weather" days off on Mon. and Tues. That includes all grade levels. Most schools I live near are built with road ways around them with no curbs, sidewalks, ect. to encourage student to ride bikes, skate, or walk.

Just wanted to share with others to see what they thought about it.

And the people lined right up for gas just like they did last time. Sheep. They never learn. Last time the panic lasted a whole afternoon and people waited in line for an hour and some paid as much as $5 a gallon for gas. The next morning, everything was normal. I mean gas was a little higher and some stations were bled dry, but 2 blocks away was another station with plenty of fuel. This time it's only precautionary, but the people line right up and the prices head right up at the same time.

Last time the gov. eliminated state tax on fuel to help with the high prices. (about 15 cents) Then asked everyone to conserve. You want them to conserve? Raise the tax to about a buck. When fuel is $4 a gallon, people will conserve. You lower the price and no one's going to pay a dang bit of attention.

I never drive my van so it sits in the driveway with a full tank. Not because I'm paranoid, simply because it never gets used. So I'm not really worried. If we need to use a car to get somewhere, we can always use it. We have just about every store imaginable within easy walking or riding distance, so other than work and personal stuff, we have no worries.

My daughter goes to a private school and they are still having classes. My wife drives right by the school on her way to work and on the way home, so school makes no difference to our fuel usage anyway.

Az

Oh yeah, the good news is that if we do have a fuel shortage, the roads will be a lot more bicycle friendly!

Az

As you could probably guess by my avatar, I do not make a hobby of defending Republican Politicians, I don't think I'm alone in wondering "what is exactly so crazy..."

Please consider the following from The Associated Press:

Notice that the main point is a save in diesel (although I must admit the article headline glosses over this). Diesel fuel that would be used in school buses could instead be used in construction equipment or trucks carrying supplies.

While I strongly believe that some politicians need to think more strategically, sometimes immediate problems require tactical responses that have a possibility of short term benefit.

A friend of mine teaches school. The first thing he did upon hearing this news was call me to see if I wanted to go riding Monday and Tuesday at a trail about an 80 mile round trip from his house.

So construction is more important than education? Georgia schools are already number 50 in the nation. At least Bill Clinton managed to get Arkansas schools up to 49th. As a person living in Georgia, I can attest to the fact that these people need more education more than they need more roads.

The other thing the Gov. did was to eliminate the state fuel tax to help keep gas prices low. Here again, he's not thinking ahead. Keeping gas prices low simply encourages people to go drive more. If we need to conserve, he needs to raise the tax to about a dollar.

Az

I didnt say that... But the idea is we have another huricane about to take another bite out of the gulf coast and we are already running low on diesel.

I'm not going to argue to tax or not to tax, but all of the south is not going to trade in their F-150s for Trek MTBs tomorrow if gas went up a dollar. Plus the Gov is not asking the residents of GA to conserve because it is in general the right thing to do. He is asking for conservation because it will take a hell of a lot of diesel to power the equipment that will be cleaning up the aftermath of Katrina and Rita.

Why's he trying to conserve fuel in the first place? Closing schools isn't the answer to conserve fuel. If he's serious, he could ask civil servants to telecommute a little more.

They don't need to trade in thier F150s for Treks. What they need to do is stop racing from red light to red light and cut out non-essential driving. Human nature being what it is, asking us to conserve to alleviate a shortage only panics people into filling up so they dont run out.

My point is simple. If you raised the tax, it would get people's attention and they would be more likely to change thier behaviour.

Az

I'm so ready to move to Europe!

Hey, no doubt the biggest complaint is people having to find babysitters so the parents can go to work...the cost of fuel is way secondary to this...I don't own a car or have school age kids so it makes no never mind to me <g>

Why not have a walk-your-kid-to-school day? Most elementary school students are within a mile of their school. For most, that's an easily walkable distance.

I live on a street with an elementary school, and lazy, overprotective parents with lazy, overprotected kids cram the street with cars and SUV's twice every school day. (Yes, I know that a few of them probably couldn't walk, but that's the exception.)

My parents made me walk or ride. In elementary school, the trip was half a mile. In middle school, it was just shy of two miles.

People in the south don't know snow. If they moved to the midwest for one snow season, they wouldn't do idiot stuff like that. Part of the reason I moved to Virginia was to help out with the kids, since there were so many snow days it was insane, and my brother and sister-in-law were forced to take days off and time off work to deal with the kids. Once, they had the kids with them at my brother's work, and they had to put the kids under his desk and keep them quiet for the entire day. What do they expect working parents to do when they have to deal with the kids all winter instead of keeping them in school? This is just bonehead.

Hopefully, they'll just not vote for the idiot. There are better ways to deal with the no gas... like encouraging carpooling, putting kids on buses, encouraging people to walk instead of driving 5 blocks, etc.

Koffee

Bingo, instead of some teachers driving to school and home Monday and Tuesday they will see it as an oppurtunity drive all over the place doing errands, shopping, and going on short vacations. They will end up using more gas. How many of them do you think will actually stay at home and not use their cars for two days? I don't see that happening.

Also, eventhough students will probally not have to make up these days the teachers will at the end of the year.

Most businesses can not afford to be closed for two days how can we justify closing school for two days?
Is the value of education in the state of GA that low on the list? Losing two days of instrucational time with our future is not the answer. There has to be a better longterm answer to this problem.

Folks, 25% of the refining capacity in the US is temporarily out of commission. And yes, he did ask civil servants to telecommute if possible next week. This is a temporary measure for next Monday and Tuesday only.

You folks knee jerk so hard you kick yourself in the face. I guess it's because of our overdeveloped quads.

Kids these days! When I was young we had to walk 5 miles to school, barefoot, and the snow was so high you had to knock on the attic windows.

Hey! I only said half a mile to elementary school and two miles to middle school. But I get the point.

And it was uphill both ways!

Az

LOL, and we had to hunt for our lunch on the way.

( Daily, I wasn't directing my comment at anyone, I just noticed nobody had beat me to the punch so I went for the humor. )

I second that one!

Remember the "penny tax" they wanted to start? Simply a penny for every purchase of none food items and everyone turned it down. A penner per purchase...as a Kroger employee I can tell you I myself make at least two non-food purchases per day, which adds up to 750ish per year. Granted, that's only $7.50 for me to contribute to the school system of Georgia (whether it really does exist or not is another matter ), but when you add up the entire population of Georgia and all the "non-food" purchases people make...it adds up. And besides, it's a penny per transaction. So that $5000 frame I want would sky rocket to $5000.01...The world's going to end, nope, can't have a penny tax!

That being said, what would make us think the people coming from Georgia (politicians, I mean) would be smart enough to do such a thing?

Where I grew up there was so much snow, lots of houses had walkways from their second stories to the street so they wouldn't have to tunnel out from the front door all winter- true story! from Houghton/Hancock, Michigan. People still ski to school up there. Thread drift, whoops!

Any show of conservation is better than nothing, too bad it takes a natural disaster to get georgia's governor to endorse it.

Just another way to get you to pay for the high price of gas. This is esentially a regressive tax aimed at only parents, not the whole municipality. Here in pa they want gambling to pay for the school tax. Also since we are on some new daylight savings thing, there will be more snow days used, since it will be harder to clear snow before the busses can get out.

Here in NYC, the snow had to be around 3 ft. deep before they called a snow day and only cuz it would take the us so long to walk to school and the teachers even longer cuz they took the subways and buses. We didn't have school buses and no one drove us.

As for conserving gas, didn't we go through this in the 1970's? That's when Japanese cars became so popular for their fuel efficiency and people took mass transit and car pooled. I wonder if now's a good time to buy Honda and Toyota stock.