I moved to this country in 1999. I was born and raised in Germany having been born to American parents there. As opposed to here, the driving age in Germany is 18 and when I had passed my driver’s license test I had no illusion of getting my own car. Having your own car at that age was considered some what of a luxury item, considering gas prices there have always been astronomically high, in comparison to here. Just a short ride to school by car was equivalent to $5-$10 in gas, needless to say I didn’t have that kind of money when I was a student in high school.
Another thing that was very common is that you give the person you’re driving with gas money. In some cases this is just common courtesy but in most cases it’s expected, considering how high gas prices are. The effect that has on the population is of course that distances become greater, due to their price. I drove to Bavaria once from where I lived with a few friends and I think for the 8h trip down it was $100 per person and there were 4 of us in the car. What I’m getting at with this is the fact that I’ve been accustomed to gas costs pretty much all my life.
When I came to the US in 1999 gas prices were so low, you could literally just leave away your gas calculations in your monthly household budget, if you were an infrequent driver. That has of course changed dramatically. Now all the car dealers that have been pushing gas guzzling cars against all reasoning and common sense are stuck with all these vehicles that nobody wants, because just keeping those tanks fueled, is enough to make the payment on the vehicle.
The reality of things is that I believe we’re in for much more than what we’re seeing now. It boggles my mind that we haven’t seen more trucker strikes, that people haven’t hit the streets yet in protest, but I guess we still have a while to go on that . I’m sure gas prices are going to keep going up and unfortunately what that’s going to mean is that the common man and the middle class will be hit the hardest, as always. The billions of dollars we’re wasting in Iraq. Imagine the gas savings for not driving an M1A-Abrahams tank around for no reason. Or imagine not flying any Stealth bombers, or not fueling Air craft carriers - where now that I think about it I’m sure that some of the Ships are powered by nuclear fusion which probably means they don’t use a lot of fuel. I’m sure the amount of military vehicles we have driving around the world also makes up a huge amount of fuel we could save.
Here we are, George and Dick are laughing whole heartedly, unless I’m missing something here all of this has worked out quite nicely for them. The companies they have awarded the contracts to in Iraq are making a killing, the companies they made campaign promises too are doing quite well too I think. I’m not sure what good it does us by now, but I hope what’s happening to this country is a lesson to those who have been living the ignorant version of the American Dream for the past 30 years. The Republicans who have dominated the debate for the past decade or more are finally at the point where they have to concede to the fact that they messed it all up.
I drive a Honda so my gas usage is still affordable, though of course the cost of driving has tripled for me as it has for everyone else in this country. That doesn’t change the fact that literally everything we touch on a daily basis gets delivered by fuel driven vehicles, meaning that all these hikes in fuel costs are ultimately going to be felt in every area of life. What pisses me off the most is that we don’t have any realistic alternatives! I would love to take the Bus to work, or the train for that matter but the ability to do that doesn’t exist.
This article was written by Arno - Author's Website
{ 0 comments… add one now }
Leave a Comment