Wow, getting on toward $11 a gallon - that wouldn't deter me, as it doesn't you, but it sure would make a person think about how to do all his weekly errands in the shortest driving distance. My Porsche is getting 20 mpg in daily driving to and from work (a mixture of street and highway) and believe it our not, the 14% heavier Lincoln gets 21 mpg on the same drive. When you figure the cost/mile it's really not that bad even at $11-$12 dollars, but of course if it were electricity instead it would cut the cost a lot, so . . .

By the way, we have Cold Case, Silent Witness, New Street law and Waking the Dead, and like them a lot, also Rosemary and Thyme which my wife likes -- we'll by any and every UK police series we can get on DVD here. Our favorite remains Frost, or David Jason really - he was in a short series called Diamond Geezer in the UK (called Rough Diamond here) which is good, too. When I was last in LondonI saw some inspector lewis DVDs in a store but they are the wrong format for US televisions and won't play here. Have to wait for a translation to US format, or buy one of those "international" DVD players that convert all other formats to US format as they play -- trouble is their pictures are so fuzzy. I may do that just because there are something like 24 seasons of Taggart available in the UK and we can only buy three seasons in the US format.

Or maybe I just move to the UK - I pay $12 for gas but then I can watch all this stuff on the TV for free!

 

Thanks Lee, you've just made me more optimistic today. I have never contrasted expensive Gas with Free TV. But you are right, we do have great Free TV in the UK.
PS my Porsche is currently doing 28 mpg which is not bad.
Regards Big Bob

 

By the way everyone, I saw convincing proof some people don't care about the cost of fuel. I drove up to DC last week for a meeting at the Dept of Energy and passed a guy and his wife on the Interstate, clearly retired (65 of so, Florida plates) heading north on I-95just north of Richmond in a 42 foot RV at 75 mpg, and, as many of those often do, towing a second vehcile to use as a run-around when "they get there" so they can set up and leave the RV in one place: that was a Hummer H2!!! Clearly this guy intended to do his partto use it all up now.

 

Here in Bakersfield, ca. it's at $4.35 for 93 octane, and Bakersfiled is one of the largest oil producing cities U.S. We produce, refine and ship to other parts of Ca. and it's cheaper there? It doesn't make sense

 

Well, its probably some sort of "the cobbler's children go without shoes" thing. $4.35 seems high to me, but then I haven't bought gas in a week! :-)

 

@4.25/gallon here in seattle for super. I know some people don't care about gas prices, and it reallyhasn't bothered memuch yet, but I work for Waste Management and Just for my shop alone, they spend around $250,000 a month to fuel about 100 trucks. People might start caring more about fuel prices when their garbage bill rates start to increase.

Kevin

 

The best course is to just suck it up and pay, no matter what vehicle you own. But people do such irrational things. A neighbor just tradedhis2-year old Tahoo on a Prius. He paid $1700 (a "market demand" premium the dealer charged) over sticker for the car on top of the roughly $3000 premium the hybrid technology normally costs compared to just a non-hybridsmall car. That means he has about a 5 year break even point on the Prius. But he took a huge hit on depreciation when he traded, because used SUVs aren't worth anything now. He estimated he got about $4000 less than he "should have" for it. He's very unlikely to ever break even.

 

In the mean time I've entered a Petition on the 10 Downing Street Prime Ministers Web Site
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/letsallsuffer/

Your petition reads:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to disallow
MPs,Government Ministers, and Civil Servants to reclaim
expenses on Motoring Fuel Costs

Remove expense claims for MPs, Government Ministers and Civil
Servants on Motoring Fuel Costs until Parliament addresses the
current crisis for the general populace of this country.

I've also written to the Prime Minister about his latest plan to increase Car Tax retroactively to the latest rates for cars first registered in2001!!!!!!

Regards Big Bob in Political Mood

 

Yeah, I do worry about gas prices. I saw an article in the NY times that said some lower paid workers in the US are paying up to 15% of their salary for gas just to get to work. I'm sure that figure is the very rare, worst case, but the fact is some people are feeling the pinch.


When you look at some poor guy commuting 50 miles each way, each day, and working five days a week, at 25 mpg that's $4000 a year for fuel at 25 mpg. If he's making $10/hour, that was 15% of his annual salary at $3, and every $1 more per galloon takes another 5%.