https://flickr.com/photos/kc-bike/256...7605149592582/



A fellow bike commuter and I noticed this van come to a stop up the road from us a ways. It just stopped right there like you see it in the middle of the road. Several other cars stopped behind it and eventually took the shoulder or the (no passing zone) oncoming lane to get around it. As we approached, the driver got out, opened the back, and pulled out a gas can to start walking down the road. This guy ran out of gas in his minivan. This has been in the news lately. Mounting fuel prices have forced (what? at gunpoint?) drivers to put less fuel in their tanks. As such, incidents like this are becoming a lot more common.

It's my guess that this is mostly due to people who pay attention only to how much money (not gallons) they pump at a time. Think about the comment "$10 will get me to work for 2 more days." Now, think how $10 used to buy 3.3 gallons when gas was $3 per gallon not long ago. Now it only buys 2.5 gallons. This guy just got served.

I thought about stopping and offering him my bottle of gatorade, then saying "Oh, sorry, this fuel won't work in your minivan." I just kept riding, though.

wow. you are right, he got served !

So he must have had a clue this was coming, couldn't be bothered to pull over? Nice to leave the shoulder open for bikes I guess.

I read that too, and it makes no sense. I guess if you're flat broke, but really, with the price of gas going up, it makes sense to always keep your tank topped up. I try to fill up at 1/4 tank at the lowest.

I knew a guy who never filled up more than 1/2 tank because he was always broke, and he ran out of gas a lot. Thing is, if he filled up at 1/2 tank and filled it all the way up, other than a one-time investment in a half tank of gas it would have cost him the same per month. All he would have had to do was to skip his case of beer one weekend and he'd stop running out of gas, but I don't think that ever occurred to him.

Weird that he didn't pull off the damn road when he ran out of gas. Or at least PUSHED it off the road. Hopefully he got ticketed for leaving the car in the middle of the road.

Really. If gas is going up a nickel a day, the only way to save is to increase the number of days between gas station visits.

I don't care to figure out the math myself, but in larger vehicles, hauling around 25 gal of gas has to impact the mpg, no? 25gal of gas has to weigh quite a bit i'd imagine and only keeping a half tank or less would probably increase mpg, though I have no clue by how much.

Also, the other day I was thinking about what $1 worth of gas looks like by itself. If you figure $4.30 a gallon as it is here (higher depending on where you are), that puts $1 of gas at about 0.88 liters, or 2.11 pints! Think about that for a minute....actually gas is much cheaper than beer still. A gallon of milk is almost as expensive as a gallon of gas these days.

I've heard about this lately, too. Sunday night my brother and I were riding around late, and before we entered our apartment complex we rode through the gas station next door (which closes late at night). On the pumps you could see how much the last people to fill up put in their cars. One pump was $31 but the rest were no more than $6. One showed an amount of less than a gallon! I have heard that some are doing this so that if someone steals the gas out of their tank, they won't get much. It's amazing that it's come to that.

ROFL. That's good.

Don't know if this has happened to anyone,else.
Was at Tim Hortons, today to get a coffee, when
I came out, a man, stopped me,and ask if I would
give him a dollar for gas.
I told him, a dollar isn't going to get you far, buy a
bicycle,and ride for free. Went over and got on my
bike, and rode past him laughing.

Jeez, his low fuel warning light must've been on for a while and he still runs out of gas? Then he abandons his car in the middle of the road? I'd call the cops so they could tow his car and issue a bunch of tickets.

Were it not for the convertible sitting outside, I'd get more enjoyment out of that 2.11 pints of beer than the equivalent of gas Even then I still sometimes get more entertainment out of beer than gas

^ ain't that the truth...

This is why I started to commute by bike..............Gas was cutting into my beer money.

Some of you guys are pricks. But you are funny pricks. I like that.

That's true, but you can pick up a 6-pack for less than 1 gallon of gas. $3.69 for a 6-pack of Miller High Life...not that you wouldn't have to point a gun at me to get me to drink High Life

If you put it into perspective, other fluids are much more expensive per say. But we don't buy 20 gallons of milk a week at the grocery store. And unless you're in college, you're not going to be buying 20 gallons of beer a week either!

I've stopped on my bike and helped to push several stalled (out of gas?) cars out of intersections... and dug one out of a snow bank.

*shrug* Maybe they'll get a clue.

He'll learn his lesson when he spends $600 to have his fuel pump replaced.

This is what I do with my beater truck (that was driven about 1500ish miles in the last year, including lending it to friends). Of course, a 30 gallon tank at $4/gallon increases its value by about 12%.

I haven't bothered looking at the "last purchase" on the gas pumps. I know my last fill up in the Exploder was on May 5th:



That didn't hurt too bad because it'd been at least a month since we filled it up before that. And I think it's still got 1/4 tank left.

It's kind of funny when you look at that and see "cheap" gas from a month ago.

MtDew is my favorite bike fuel. With a Buy One Get One Free Bottle Cap, this stuff set me back about $3.15 per gallon. Cheaper AND tastier than gasoline.

That vehicle would need to be at least 10 years old for that to happen. OBD2 computers monitor fuel pressure and will shut down the pump when fuel pressure drops below a few psi. Turning the switch off and then back on resets it so you don't even need to know how to reset it. I hate in-tank fuel pumps but thats what you gotta have with fuel injection systems. I remember when the first system were installed without tank mounted fuel pumps. If you let it run out of fuel you had to put a priming pump in the fuel system and purge all the air out of the fuel lines. That is extreme PITA.

My scoot (big 250cc) has a 9 liter tank with 1 of 9 being reserve that will not show on the fuel gage. If I let it get that low before I toped it off I would only (only?) spend ~$8. Perhaps you have lots of scoot riders in your area now.

It is very likely that some of those pumps were last used by scooter riders. I've seen a few around town, but many more motorcycles. I like scooters.

can't say that I've seen a single scooter around here...ever. I was just thinking about them the other day and how as young'ns, a few of my friends had a "Jog" or "Razz" scooter and how they'd probably become popular again.

High gas prices have nothing to do with running out of gas. Stupidity is the only reason for running out of gas. Plus, you should always keep your tank more than half full. Gas evaporates rapidly, you are better off having less air in your gas tank. Especially in the summer, you should fill up every time you get down to about 1/2 a tank.