Chuck&Gail wrote: I see you are from the east. Drive out here awhile, you might change your mind. I can show you roads where you can drive over a hundred miles and not see a house or building the entire time. In fact if you pass another car you usually wave, cause you don't see many. Anywhere to do that in Virginia?
You my friend are a lucky man.
Not always, unless you are toting one with you, finding a bathroom can be an issue...lol. You always carry TP
Michael, Kay, Hans (our Mini-Schnauzer co-pilot) and Prissy (Hans' Malti-Poo co-pilot)
'05 Coachmen SportsCoach SE 372DS a.k.a. "Mana's Cabana"
Let me add fuel to this fire. Where is more fuel used? On the open interstates when people are driving the speed limits or in the metro areas when millions of cars and trucks are stuck in stop and go traffic doing an average of about 25 MPH? Slowing down the traffic on the interstates will have only a nominal effect on the total fuel usage. Doing something about the crowded metro traffic will have much more profound effect and would be a long term solution. There are many ways that can be done but I don't want to make this a twenty page white paper.
One point on the old 55 MPH laws. Actually, there was not a federal speed limit. The states had the right to set the speed limits but if it was over 55, the feds would not give them any funds to maintain roads. The states cannot afford to maintain the system without federal money. The feds did not get any money from the speeding tickets, just the states and local authorities. In many western states, the authorities did not enforce the 55 MPH limit.
diceshooter60 wrote: This oil "crisis" has nothing to do with supply or demand. There's plenty of oil for sale. As a poster mentioned, there's a worldwide demand for oil, so we can save all we want and the price isn't going down.
A poster mentioned the speculators and the weak dollar. This is the real issue as to why the cost of a gallon of gas has spiked so high. That, and the gas companies charge $4.399 for diesel because they can and I'll pay it to get to work and back every day.
You are leaving out the major factor in the run up in price of gasoline, and especially diesel, and that is they enormous demand for fuel in the emerging economies of China and India. All those jobs we have sent overseas has caused exponenntial economic growth and that all means a tremendous thirst for oil.
BigT is exactly right about where the biggest increase in demand is. If you want to curb demand close Wally World. That would stem the flow of our $$$ to China and they wouldn't need the oil.
If we are serious enough about saving gas with regulation it should be taken another step. Let's remove the 90% of stop lights that are unnecessary but placed there because some dolt wrecked and did not understand there was a stop sign there. Let's force slower people to pull over so large groups of cars don't have to use more gas to pass. Imagine how much fuel would be saved if all RVers were forced to tow pop-ups instead of their "homes on wheels". I see the point but personally would fall asleep if I had to drive 55MPH on a freeway.
I don't know about where you live, but in my neck of the woods, the stoplights are timed. If you take off from the light moderately and drive conservatively to the next light, generally the speed limit or a little less, you will hit the next stoplight when it changes to green. 95% of the people don't know this cause they are racing from stoplight to stoplight only to get there and have to stop and wait for the light to change. Same scene everyday on my drive to work. I maintain a constant, moderate speed, they blow my doors off, I pass them again at the next light cause I am already at speed when they are accelarating out of the box. A lot of times they are actually holding me up cause I have to slow down for them to get moving again from the stoplight as I am there, going 35 mph, as it changes to green.
Isn't it funny how the French population, that last great bastion of extreme liberalism, embraces nuclear energy.
But "our" liberal greenies want nothing to do with it??
Sometimes (most times) I think that "our" greenies want to take us back to the pre-industrial days, where subsistence farming (grow your own food) was the rule and you played in the fields with Laura Ingalls Wilder.
smkettner wrote: You don't need a 55 law to drive 55. Maybe instead of a gas tax holiday, the fuel tax should be increased. I propose 10 cents each year for 20 years. Use the money to improve the roads, bridges, railsystem and other transportation infrastructure options.
We already have a gas tax, and the money is SUPPOSED to go to the improvements you mention.
Unfortunately, it goes to the general fund and supports pork every-expanding government programs.
What makes you think additional taxes would go where they're supposed to?
Government isn't in the business to save money. It's there to spend money, collected via taxes. In the case of the US, they sped WAAAY more than they generate in taxes.
smkettner wrote: You don't need a 55 law to drive 55. Maybe instead of a gas tax holiday, the fuel tax should be increased. I propose 10 cents each year for 20 years. Use the money to improve the roads, bridges, railsystem and other transportation infrastructure options.
Great idea, now if we can get OPEC to agree. Heck we should have credit for 10 years now since gas went up over $1.00 this year per Gallon in some areas.
Don't like the view?? Then change it and Go Camping
wing_zealot wrote: I don't know about where you live, but in my neck of the woods, the stoplights are timed. If you take off from the light moderately and drive conservatively to the next light, generally the speed limit or a little less, you will hit the next stoplight when it changes to green. 95% of the people don't know this cause they are racing from stoplight to stoplight only to get there and have to stop and wait for the light to change. Same scene everyday on my drive to work. I maintain a constant, moderate speed, they blow my doors off, I pass them again at the next light cause I am already at speed when they are accelarating out of the box. A lot of times they are actually holding me up cause I have to slow down for them to get moving again from the stoplight as I am there, going 35 mph, as it changes to green.
They are timed perfectly to allow the guy on his cell phone leading the group to get through. If I race to the next one I can get through but at regular speeds they stop every intersection. I find that if I get stopped at one (noone in front of me) I can gun it, get up to 10MPH over the limit, and just make it through all of the lights as they change to yellow. Still there are too many of them even if the timing is fixed. I firmly believe that a lot of people that speed (myself included) would slow down if not being held up so much. I am never in a hurry to get there I just hate having to stop at absolutely every light. You're right they are meant to keep traffic flowing well but in most places they are not timed to do so.
I have 9 stoplights on my way to work. Two of them, no matter what you do (short of taking off like a bat out of hell and driving about 40 over), you have to stop for. The other 7, as long as you are driving as I mentioned above, you hit as they are changing to green and can go right on through.
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