From: Stephen Grammont (islander@midmaine.com)
Date: Fri Apr 08 2005 - 08:18:34 PDT
Hi Ryan,
> As someone said however, getting from one small part of North America
> to another takes a bloody long time. It's 13 hours from Atlanta to DC
> at 60 mph. Its about the same from Atlanta to Miami and that's just
> down to the next state. New England is sneaky because there's a lot of
> small states. Go out west and you're looking at driving for hours just
> to get out of the same county. They build the land big out there.
Yes, but that doesn't mean one should be doing that 13 hour trip from
Atlanta to DC in an SUV that gets 14mpg :-) In other words, the rate
of consumption in the US is determined by distance and fuel efficiency.
We can't do anything about the distance (practically speaking), but we
COULD do something about fuel efficiency. But the consumer doesn't
want to pay for it, industry doesn't want to do something new, and
government doesn't want to do anything except ban guns or stick feeding
tubes back into brain dead patients. So instead of raising the bar on
fuel efficiency over the last 10 years, like Europe, the US has
actually LOWERED the bar.
> I would point out that the high fuel costs severely impact all those
> things because you're reliant on heavy over the road transport for
> moving building materials and food to the distribution and final end
> points. This is the thing that has really soured me to the idea of
> increased fuel taxes.
The US is probably even more reliant on over the road transportation
than Europe because of our vast distances and the lack of a viable rail
network. When fuel prices go up it affects US commerce just as much as
European commerce. The difference is that there is more wiggle room in
the US because the base rate is so much lower. Which is why I think
increased fuel taxes isn't the answer. A partnership of consumer,
government, and industry (in that order) to figure out how to lower
consumption is the real answer. But that would mean understanding the
problem, and that's a lot to ask of any one of those three :-)
Steve
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