Gas at $3.25,will affect attendance

I wouldn't be so sure. After what I have seen the past months, $4 isn't out of range.

Right, and you know the EXACT trend of gas prices.

I'm glad we have you around even just to predict the price of gas.

ejh1701 said:
I wouldn't be so sure. After what I have seen the past months, $4 isn't out of range.

Sure, so is $10! Where do you draw the line?

Most interesting: analysts that have called for $100/bbl oil and $4 gas more often than not have a stake in those commodities.

Its all about fear.

REGARDLESS, Its not stopping me from visiting CP in May. *** Edited 5/4/2007 1:50:29 AM UTC by cedarpointr0x***

Quit your whining, go to Europe, check the prices. Then come back and whine.

You see, there's 10% more cars on the road with only one person in the car than last year. People keep on driving more often, much harder, and much faster.

cedarpointr0x said:
A recent poll conducted by Epic MRI stated that 60% of families say the high gas prices are hurting them.

When a different question was asked "would these high gas prices cause you to drive less?" Only 15% said yes.

Thats how screwed up many people are.

Keep in mind, many of those people can't drive les because of work.

Personally, I drive as little as possible. I keep my trips around town down to as few trips as possible by combining my errends. I keep the tires inflated to help gas milage (as opposed to soft tires), I keep the load as light as possible to avoid excess weight (if I can get away with it, I keep the back seat of the van in the garage), I avoid running the AC as it jacks the gas mileage up. I avoid idling, because when you are sitting there with a running car, you are getting 0 mpg. I get the oil changed by the recommended time, and get the spark plugs & wires changed out when needbe to help with gas mileage.

Until 3 weeks ago when Nick started the new job, we were going through a full tank of gas once per every 2 weeks, unles we took a trip somewhere.

Now, we're going through a full tank once every 2-3 days. :(

When we move, it'll be about once every 7 days, give or take, since it will still be a 15 minute commute. But even then, he's going to be driving our newer escort that we just got. It's got a 10 gallon tank, so it needs filling more than the van, but the gas mileage is much better.

Jeff, I don't disagree with your statement about people being able to see beyond their choices and how it will affect everyone else, but that can be applied to a lot of different situations.

i.e. why does everyone drive on 250 to get to CP when there are alternative routes that, if taken, might cause 250 to be sligthly less congested?

but yet many people will continue to blame 250 entirely on the city of Sandusky and the state of Ohio, but continue to use 250 to get to places that have alternative routes.

...playing devils advocate here..

^Because they are too lazy/stupid/stubborn to find an alternate route? People want what is handed to them, they don't want to take the time to look at a street map or take an extra few mintues driving through a neighborhood finding out which streets connect to where.

Jeff, you are my hero. You've already said all that I have to say, except better than I would have said it.

I teach music at a Kindergarten-3rd grade elementary school. Every Friday morning I have to stand outside for traffic duty while the lines and lines of cars and SUV's drop off their children at school (whatever happened to riding the bus?) This morning I counted. For every small car I saw there were about 3 SUV's and minivans (mostly SUV's). I highly doubt that most of them served any purpose other than being a family vehicle, and I'm not really sure why a family of four with two young children needs an SUV that seats more people than my living room.

It's all about status. A Honda civic doesn't impress the Jones' across the street, but a Ford Expedition does.

marvina1216 said:
Jeff, you are my hero.

Never in my pathetic existence on this entire big ole earth would I have ever guessed those 5 words would have either been spoken or written.

What has this world come to? :)

It's bad enough to generalize, it is worse to generalize based on the superficial or anecdotal. Saying everyone who buys an SUV is an evil young family who only uses the gas guzzler to impress neighbors and buy groceries is like saying all smokers are inconsiderate, or all women are bad drivers.

I guess my Ford Explorer is just in the driveway so my neighbors think more highly of me. I wonder if they're impressed when I'm hauling fence posts, building material, power equipment, mulch, or any of the countless number of tasks I use it for on a regular basis. I'm not sure I could even give a complete lists of tasks I've been able to complete with the SUV that would have been impossible or more difficult without it. And I won't bother presenting such a list, because I have no need to defend my vehicle, despite the attempted guilt trip.

Of course, the advantage of having something like a Honda Civic is that it would apparently give me a superiority complex. :)

It's very important to protect the environment. But it seems many on the far, far end of that spectrum don't understand balance. Environmental concerns don't automatically trump economic or productivity concerns. Yes, sometimes it does trump them, but certainly not every time.

*** Edited 5/4/2007 5:08:42 PM UTC by Walt***

Come on Walt... you know that it's a safe generalization that most people never use 90% of the potential of an SUV. You drive, what, 40 to 50 miles round-trip to work, five days a week? And to Cedar Point 70 round-trip? What percentage then are you hauling anything? There are always exceptions, but especially in terms of Hummers and Escalades, those are vanity cars. They won't get them dirty, let alone haul something in them.

And as far as economic issues, I don't think people are willing to accept that the long-term economic impact of environmental damage will far outweigh any gain made by using an SUV.

mk522 said:
i.e. why does everyone drive on 250 to get to CP when there are alternative routes that, if taken, might cause 250 to be sligthly less congested?

That's apples and oranges. If you don't know the area, you don't know the area. Unless you live in a cave and don't pay for your own gas, you know that bigger cars cost more and pollute more. *** Edited 5/4/2007 5:41:50 PM UTC by Jeff***

Jeff said:
They won't get them dirty, let alone haul something in them.

Which is why I had a laugh a couple years ago when a woman who pulled into the parking lot of the range I shot at in college. There was a soccer field next door (indoor range, no moving target practice) and she was picking her kid up. She went less than 5mph and did everything to avoid the pot holes in the dirt parking lot while driving a 4x4 Explorer.

A couple years later, I had a Jeep Cherokee. There wasn't a mud or pothole that it missed and every chance I had to take it down a dirt road I took. That thing wanted to get dirty, and I can't wait to get my hands on another Jeep, regardless of the gas mileage.

Is it nice having a car? Sure, especially since I rarely got the chance to take my Jeep OR. But there are times, especially when I need the cargo space or there's a particularly muddy road that I miss having the Jeep. And I don't have the means right now to carry vehicles so I can feel good about not driving a "gas guzzler" to work and back every day.

DJTheC said:
Quit your whining, go to Europe, check the prices. Then come back and whine.

Actually they would be paying the same amount for gas that we currently pay, but their governments tax the life out of it.

Plus its just not good comparsion. How big are European countries compared to the United States? They have much less distance to drive when going on a cross country vacation. Plus, many cars in Europe all have 4 cyclinders with supercharged on it. We drive a totally different vehicle as they do.

Not to mention they have a mass-transit system that actually works. *cough*SMART*cough*

In my case, it would be pretty hard for me to justify an SUV based on the household hauling I do.

When I have to bring home bags of mulch, lumber and other bulky items, I just rent a Home Depot truck for $20 an hour. Usually one hour is all I need.

That may cause a little inconvenience, but that's all forgotten when I'm getting 30mpg out of my VW Jetta with the 2.0l turbo engine on the highway, while still seeing 0-60 times of around 7.0 sec.

To me, it makes much more economic sense to do it my way, and it's better for the environment.

On a broader social scale, if the majority of people got rid of their trucks and drove cars, the price of gas would rapidly drop for everyone because demand would be significantly less.

Exactly. We take driving for granted so badly.

^^ - or would the price of gas go up to compensate the decrease in demand? The point of dropping the price of a product is to stimulate demand by making the product more financially appealing.

But when you have something that people do NEED but on a lower scale (because everyone has switched to more fuel efficient vehicles) lowering the price probably won't cause people to use more gas.
So, either gas prices continue to rise to offset the drop in sales, OR gas prices drop, people fall back into old habits of buying gas hogs because it is cheaper for the gas now, and we end up back at square one.

I think public transportation is a big need in this country honestly. Unfortunately I think Michigan, the state of the auto, is last on the list. You can't do anything in this country without having a car. You almost need a car to survive, or have a way of getting places at least.

I was in a discussion the other night with a co-worker about drunk driving. Most other countries do not tolerate Drunk driving at all. For some reason we do. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that if someone is convicted and has their right of driving taken away they can't do anything. It's hard to even get to the grocery store in this country without your own car.

The real question, though, is how do you make public transportation profitable and still make it work? It hasn't seemed to work in anything but big cities in this country.

I know I'm late to this discussion, but there are a lot of valid reasons to have big cars. What do you expect to have happen Jeff? The government just tell everyone they can't drive a hummer because its big and bad? What about those that are legitimately using big SUV's?

I can understand why people don't want secondary cars either. The price of insurance in this country is sky high - just insuring another car can make it not worthwhile.

Jeff said:
What percentage then are you hauling anything?

Using a straight percentage isn't a fair way to measure the usefulness. Is it worth it to buy a snow blower if I only use it a few days a year? If it helps me those few days, then yes. I don't need to justify my purchase, but it's not an ego vehicle. And it's not like the Explorer is a gas guzzler when compared to my previous vehicle, a Taurus. I get about 19-20 mpg on the highway now, but the Taurus only did around 25-26 mpg. The SUV gets the grief, but should we feel guilty for anything other than a 4-cylinder?

I still think we're generalizing that it's overwhelmingly used for vanity. No doubt there are people who have vanity vehicles. And yes, I think Hummers and such are stupid and a waste. But I'm not going to judge people who drive them. Then again, maybe we're really talking about two different classes here - smaller SUV's like an Explorer or Trail Blazer, and the monster trucks like Expeditions and Hummers. Even I think the Expedition is overkill!

When my wife's non-SUV car was in better condition, I often drove it to work. Even now with it facing some mechanical problems, I still drive it a couple times a month. Not because it makes me feel better in an environmental sense, but because it was better choice for the situation. Of course, then my wife is "stuck" using the SUV to drop my son off at pre-school. In Westlake, no less. :)

Edit - I very much wish we had good public transportation in Cleveland. If I could reasonably take the rapid downtown, I'd do it in a second. I would love to leave my SUV in the driveway. But right now, I'd have to drive 15 minutes to the nearest station and at that point, I'm halfway there.

*** Edited 5/4/2007 7:56:28 PM UTC by Walt***

JuggaLotus said:
^^ - or would the price of gas go up to compensate the decrease in demand? The point of dropping the price of a product is to stimulate demand by making the product more financially appealing.

But when you have something that people do NEED but on a lower scale (because everyone has switched to more fuel efficient vehicles) lowering the price probably won't cause people to use more gas.
So, either gas prices continue to rise to offset the drop in sales, OR gas prices drop, people fall back into old habits of buying gas hogs because it is cheaper for the gas now, and we end up back at square one.

Monopolistic Competition. These Oil firms are not producing on the supply and demand graphs. They had a supply POINT. They're not producing at efficiency, they're producing short of efficiency. That means they're producing where it's cheaper for them, and more expensive for us. They can do that. They used to provide us with "well a refinery burned" as a fake reason, but now they just put the prices up and don't even bother to give us something to comfort us.

You're right, but they're not governed by normal supply and demand

marvina1216 said:

I teach music at a Kindergarten-3rd grade elementary school. Every Friday morning I have to stand outside for traffic duty while the lines and lines of cars and SUV's drop off their children at school (whatever happened to riding the bus?) This morning I counted. For every small car I saw there were about 3 SUV's and minivans (mostly SUV's). I highly doubt that most of them served any purpose other than being a family vehicle, and I'm not really sure why a family of four with two young children needs an SUV that seats more people than my living room.

It's all about status. A Honda civic doesn't impress the Jones' across the street, but a Ford Expedition does.

Just because you only SEE 2 kids, doesn't mean they don't have older children, too. In our house, the mini-van became a neccessity because we have 3 kids. It was hard enough to find a vehicle that seats 5 people comfortably, let alone 2 in car seats still. A car seat takes up about as much space width wise as an average sized adult. Have you squeezed two adults and a pre-teen into an escort recently?

I do agree that people are choosing larger nicer cars as status, but I can't say it's all about status. Ours was hardly about status. It was 11 years old when we bought it, and has rust on it. A year later, it's still not a status symbol, but the symbol of having a larger family that needs room to sit in 1 vehicle.