Driven
Posted: June 20th, 2008 by LockwoodIt now takes over $80 to fill the gas tank of my 2001 VW Eurovan. Between taking my daughters to school and other various trips I wind up making, I use about one tank of gas per week. To put that in perspective, for the equivalent of two weeks worth of gas, I could buy a 4GB iPod Nano. For roughly three weeks worth of gas, I could buy the 80GB iPod Classic. Or in a more realistic, non-elitist comparison…I can buy a week’s worth of groceries for the whole family for the amount it’d take to fill a tank. What about the people that are choosing between food and gas? Times are tough right now, but there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Ironically, I drove less when gas was cheaper. I would ride my bike to work at least three times per week, and my oldest daughter was in daycare on the campus where my wife works, so there was no need to drive her to camp or school.
But times have changed.
As much as I dread having to drive so much, it’s very difficult for me to get around it. Yes I often wear my Cars-R-Coffins tee, have a few One Less Car stickers placed in strategic locations and generally pontificate on the evil of combustion engines. Am I a hypocrite? Perhaps. But the harsh reality is that like most people in this country, I rely on my combustion-driven vehicle way too much. Riding my bicycle everywhere is just not practical for our family right now.
But you know what? I’m still glad that gas is getting so expensive in this country. And I hope it even gets a little more costly. I realize that statement isn’t going to make me a lot of friends, but allow me to explain.
While my wife and I do drive fairly often, we make a lot of decisions to reduce the actual amount we drive, and we’ve been doing that for years. Regardless of the cost of gasoline, people should make decisions that allow them to be more efficient. Those decisions range from the car company executives in Detroit committing to make more fuel-efficient cars, and to you and I combining trips to cut down how much we have to drive.
When I was in college, there was a dude who lived in my house one summer that would drive two blocks to go to the bar. Two blocks! The cost of gas is an absolute hardship on a lot of people that can’t get around driving a lot, and for people who’s very livelihood depends on driving. And that absolutely sucks! But I’m very happy that the high cost of gas is finally snapping people out of the idiocy of choosing to drive two blocks to go to the goddamn bar!
The high cost of gas is finally…and quickly…forcing people to question what they do, making folks have conversations about conserving and generally nudging people into making decisions that will make major parts of their lives more efficient. And, of course, people are riding their bicycles and taking mass-transit a lot more.
And that’s good stuff.
Just yesterday, in another cruel twist of irony in my life, as I drove the eight miles back to my house after dropping off my daughter at camp, I counted twelve people riding bicycles! Old ladies on old women’s three speeds, a bunch people wearing backpacks spinning quickly on their Target-bought bikes, a few people in roadie kits and one or two people on their weekend-only high end mountain bikes. This was all on a Thursday morning in suburban Philadelphia. Last summer, I wouldn’t have seen anyone on a bike on that road.
As much as I dream about it, we’re never going to reach a car-free utopia in this country. But if the high-cost of gas forces us to be more efficient, ride more bicycles, create tighter communities and breath easier…then I’m stoked.
June 20th, 2008 at 8:31 am
Great post. Lots of good thoughts in there.
June 20th, 2008 at 10:33 am
“But you know what? I’m still glad that gas is getting so expensive in this country. And I hope it even gets a little more costly.”
I agree with Lockwood. I sympathize with those who live on narrow margins out in the suburbs, but high gas prices are the bitter medicine we need in this country. I think of it as a revolution: some good and some bad will come out of this upheaval, but clearly the old way of doing things is untenable. The other day, though, when my wife pointed out that my driving to and from the mtb trails 2x/week was putting a large drain on the gas tank, I felt the pain of these gas prices loud and clear.
June 20th, 2008 at 11:53 am
$5 gas, bring it!
June 21st, 2008 at 9:55 pm
Great point. Economics motivates everyone, and as such, the higher gas prices will push more people to be ‘green’. Mainly because they will not be able to afford the ‘green’ to be wasteful! Seriously, most people need an economic incentive to do anything for the greater good. Most people will not sacrifice based upon moral reasoning. The only potential environmental issue I see from the higher gas prices would be from differed vehicle maintenance. Folks that can’t afford gas and an oil change are going to start polluting more (smoke pooring out of exhaust, etc). States are going to have a tough time enforcing environmental/vehicle-safety standards, which will mean kicking poor people out of their poorly maintained cars. Especially if any populist-politicians are involved.
Anyway, I agree, everything has positive and negative side effects… Higher gas prices mean less money to spend on other stuff, but also everyone will be driving less because of their own financial benefit/self-interest and the environment will also benefit. Interestly enough, my family is spending half this quarter as we were the previous. We have already started adjusting our activities. I wonder what price will create a tipping point for fuel consumption? Will it matter to the fuel retailers? Will they just sell it to China/India/Brazil? The world has changed so much since the 1970s, that I don’t think fuel prices will fall again, as they did in the 1980s. Maybe that isn’t such a bad thing… For the environment, innovation in the automobile industry, or for the developing world (who is influencing much of the prices through their increased demand.). I rode my bike a lot in the 90s with cheap fuel, I’ll keep riding it as fuel prices continue to climb.
June 30th, 2008 at 5:31 am
The cascading effects of high gas prices are amazing, if you think about it in terms of “what makes Europe Europe and the United States the United States.” The basic thing that allows this country a model of short-term greed is basically cheap fuel! That’s why we live in huge wasteful houses, drive huge wasteful cars, build huge sprawling subdivisions and malls, why we have the extra money to blow on totally useless advertising driven crap that fill up our huge, wasteful garages and yards, it why most Americans are couch potatoes (since we have so much extra money to buy addictive creature comforts and non-nutritious foods) … It’s why we eat terrible square tomatoes from gigantic agribusiness thousands of miles away–it’s always been cheap to transport the stuff. Not anymore. We’re going to see more small local farms, the quality of food will go way up, the availibility of local food will suddenly improve dramatically, we’ll see stronger neighborhoods, better community networks, better mass transit, better atiitudes toward global health …
It’s huge. It’s really the hugest thing that could happen to this country, next to the sudden demise of TV. (Maybe that’s next . . .)
Too bad it had to be force fed to us by the gas companies and Opec. But hey. Take a trip to Holland or Germany or Italy and THEN see if you really have a problem with living green. It’s a better quality of life, again, paradoxically, brought to you by the good folks at Chevron/Enron/Sunoco/Mobil …
June 30th, 2008 at 6:36 am
The price of gas does not just affect motor travel and food. everything clothes, building materials,and practicly every other manufactured thing are affected by fuel costs. Although cycling is a fantastic transportation mode we would be foolinsh to think it is the answer for most of our society. (my 65 yr old mother on dialysis can’t cycle to her therapies, she can barely walk.) It is immature to think everyone is going to get on a bike and that will solve our energy problems. As for those who think fuel imposed povery will change society into a utopia please look at third world nations and all theyre peace and stability.
June 30th, 2008 at 7:16 am
Bring on $10 gas, as a bike mechanic, it’s job security for all of us in the alternative transportation industries.
June 30th, 2008 at 8:26 am
INCREDIBLY myopic blog entry !!!!. as eztrucking says above. All of your costs go up, your services will go down. The government didn’t artificially inflate the price of fuel to $5/gallon in order to promote the (chinese dominated) bicycle industry. Wake up and smell the coffee. You are all being driven into slavery one small step at at time. First the money supply, now by restricting your freedom of movement. The gov’t would like nothing more than to see the normal Joe or Sally not able to travel any further than they can power themselves, unless they do it on their paths.
June 30th, 2008 at 9:36 am
As myopic as anyone driving a 2001 Eurovan could be…