[NotMyBlood]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Nickel', 'I') don’t think $3.50’s going to make a bit of difference either. In Canada, the price has been up and down over a dollar a litre for a couple of years now… that’s over $4 a gallon… and it hasn’t made much difference that I can see. I still see SUVs and “mini” vans and sports cars and even Hummers. Those things make me angry. We all have to get around, but there are some ways that make more sense than others. Driving an SUV or one of those other monstrosities simply because you can afford to (for the moment) strikes me as showing all the regard for your grandchildren as sending them to bed in a room full of scorpions, tra-la, sleep tight…

[Jester]

It reminds me of smokers.

So many times over the years, People said...

"If cigarettes get to $2 a pack, I'm quitting"
but they kept on smoking...
"If cigarettes get to $3 a pack, I'm quitting"
but they kept on smoking...
"If cigarettes get to $4 a pack, I'm quitting"
but they kept on smoking...
"If cigarettes get to $5 a pack, I'm quitting"
but they kept on smoking...
"If cigarettes get to $6 a pack, I'm quitting"
but they kept on smoking...

[veliger]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Minvaren', '.')..............(off-topic : had a discussion with a co-worker Friday who told me about how he "needed" the largest Ford SUV due to a family of 4 and a dog...)

[steam_cannon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('NotMyBlood', 'T')hey allow the sales of SUV's in Canada!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! omg!!!
And there are actual real live canadians buying them????
Ive always thought of Canada as the Tree Hugging/Environmentalists/Peak Oil Capital and its people "pure".

[Peepers]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('I_Like_Plants', '$')3.50? Better put a 10 in front of that - $13.50, about 2X what gas is in Europe.

In Europe, people are driving as much as they possibly can.

[Minvaren]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('veliger', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Minvaren', '.')..............(off-topic : had a discussion with a co-worker Friday who told me about how he "needed" the largest Ford SUV due to a family of 4 and a dog...)

[WildRose]

Well, when I filled up here in Alberta last week, the price for gas was $1.19 per liter, and judging by the traffic on the roads this price is not curtailing driving by the general public. However, I'm personally making the effort to use just a half tank of gas in my Honda every week, partly as an exercise to prove to myself that I don't HAVE to drive so much and partly because I prefer to have the extra money for the many other places in our budget that it needs to go.

I guess I'm in agreement with those who say that spending on gas will decline as the prices of other goods and services increase. In our family, as energy, food bills and property taxes increase, the discretionary spending decreases and there are some things I'd rather spend money on than gas. We have definitely curbed out-of-town trips; a day trip fishing, especially when the location is a couple of hours away, has to be budgeted for. Luckily my work is only 10 minutes from home. I think for a while people with families and high monthly expenses will weigh the cost of gas against other priorities.

[NotMyBlood]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('steam_cannon', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('NotMyBlood', 'T')hey allow the sales of SUV's in Canada!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! omg!!!
And there are actual real live canadians buying them????
Ive always thought of Canada as the Tree Hugging/Environmentalists/Peak Oil Capital and its people "pure".

[TheDude]

Americans stuck in commutes could use more cars like the Loremo LS. Hard to beat 157 MPG from a 13K 2-cylinder turbodiesel. Car pooling/sharing and more mass transit would help things move along as well; maybe using company cars stationed at Park and Rides? Lots of ideas being floated around.

We sure don't need more slacking off on these projects if you don't want a lot of chaos and unemployment.

[Twilight]

I can just imagine it now, an American office drone pacing up and down his living room, brainstorming a way of broaching the subject at work...

"Got to start carpooling... got to figure out a way of mentioning it without sounding poor... 'Say Ed, I was thinking -' Damn, they'll think I've got money problems... or I've turned leftie..."

Most people will be out of a job before they overcome that threshold.

[NotMyBlood]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TheDude', 'A')mericans stuck in commutes could use more cars like the Loremo LS. Hard to beat 157 MPG from a 13K 2-cylinder turbodiesel. Car pooling/sharing and more mass transit would help things move along as well; maybe using company cars stationed at Park and Rides? Lots of ideas being floated around.

We sure don't need more slacking off on these projects if you don't want a lot of chaos and unemployment.

[veliger]

One of the reasons car pooling and mass transit are non-starters in the US is the lack of union/socialist type clock punching schedules for most US workers. High productivity and clock punching behavior are not usually congruent.

I know very few salaried American workers who start and end their workday at the same time every day. I know my non-travel days start over about a 2-hour range and end over about a 3-hour range, and I’m not unusual.

I hate schedules, control freaks and structure, that’s why I hate authority, socialism, government, etc. I feel the same way about my car as Charlton Heston felt about his guns “From My Cold Dead Hands”. Most Americans agree with me.

Electrify the car, build more roads, and leave mass transit to the sheeple in Europe. Mass transit is for the poor and city dwellers. Every time I’m stuck in a city without a car I feel like I’m in a cage, too many people and no way to go where I want, when I want, with whomever I feel like (or not) going with.

[I_Like_Plants]

Veliger you have never worked in the American workplace.

You have to clock in at the EXACT right time, lunch and breaks are timed down to the half-minute, everything is regimented as hell.

I was extremely productive, generating $1500 or more of revenue for the co. every day.

I worked increasing hours, got to be 60+ hours a week.

I've have fucking loved a nice shuttle bus to take me to work, instead I had to find my own way by hook or crook. Taking the bus was rather cush actually.

I realized I had far more freedom and personal time and even time to fucking eat my lunch, when I was in the Army - something that's often referred to as "socialism in uniform" lol.

(The main problems with the US military now is the evil introduction of capitalism, with outcomes like sending the wounded out to battle again, trying to re-draft dead soldiers, etc. The situation at Walter Reed is capitalism all the way.)

Veliger, go out and work for a while and then come back and talk to us, OK?

[TheDude]

If people want to hold onto jobs that involve these intricate commutes they'll have to make arrangements one way or another - use only gas for the commute itself and take a shuttle bus to the box store, perhaps. These ideas are all very back-of-the-envelope, very unspecific. Maybe somebody's hashed things out in more detail, staggering shifts at neighboring employers to encourage more 'pooling.

All this red-blooded chest thumping NRA meets energy depletion is just amusing. Change your tune or lose your job. Then try and do a job search when you have to choose between food and fuel, and have rent/utilities/auto insurance coming down the pike too. I've dealt with scores of homeless people over the year and it's pretty brutal if you're too deluded to imagine such a thing happening to you.

[Fiddlerdave]

Remember, some of the economic issues are about what people are NOT buying with that extra $20 or $30 per week that goes into the gas tank. Given that much of the petro dollars flow out of the country, the economy may not be the same. Of course, so many other things now draining dollars away, too, it may be more equal.

But people who do reasonably well have no concept what the cost difference is making for what I would estimate is the bottom 1/4 of the population. And in a country with basically no mass transit, its a very serious impact on their lives.

[veliger]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('I_Like_Plants', 'V')eliger you have never worked in the American workplace.

You have to clock in at the EXACT right time, lunch and breaks are timed down to the half-minute, everything is regimented as hell.

I was extremely productive, generating $1500 or more of revenue for the co. every day.

I worked increasing hours, got to be 60+ hours a week.

I've have fucking loved a nice shuttle bus to take me to work, instead I had to find my own way by hook or crook. Taking the bus was rather cush actually.

I realized I had far more freedom and personal time and even time to fucking eat my lunch, when I was in the Army - something that's often referred to as "socialism in uniform" lol.

(The main problems with the US military now is the evil introduction of capitalism, with outcomes like sending the wounded out to battle again, trying to re-draft dead soldiers, etc. The situation at Walter Reed is capitalism all the way.)

Veliger, go out and work for a while and then come back and talk to us, OK?

[emersonbiggins]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('veliger', ' ') You must work on an assembly line if you have hours predictable enough to car pool or use mass transit regularly.

[jdmartin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('veliger', '
') Did you even read my post? I've worked for 17 of my 41 years, and other than Union type shift workers, I know zero people who start and end their work days at the same time every day. You must work on an assembly line if you have hours predictable enough to car pool or use mass transit regularly.

Cults are great, I wonder how disappointed most Peak Oiler's will be if doomsday doesn’t come in the near future.

[emersonbiggins]

Oh, I got it. Veliger is a white-collar who has "late work nights at the office" with an office skank or three. Sometimes they don't finish up until 1 AM, long after the last train has left and, if he didn't drive in earlier that day, poor Veliger is forced to stay overnight at his desk. I can see where that would be a bother, yes.

Seriously, though, who has a work schedule (or "range of hours," or "awake time", etc., whatever sounds least socialist to you) that a good mass transit system wouldn't meet?

(oh, and Veliger, if any of this "late night" lasciviousness is true, then you, sir, are my hero!)

[Lore]

I plan on being a "white collar worker" in the post peak, global warmed world.