A Downside to Fuel Efficiency?!?

[Silveredwings]

A downside to fuel efficiency?

America's growing love affair with energy-efficient cars is starting to take a toll on the nation's crumbling highways and roads.

Requiring fewer fill-ups at the pumps, the vehicles are putting a pinch on the federal Highway Trust Fund -- the major government funding source for highway and mass transit projects.

Umm. Blink. Blink. So the problem is... we aren't doing our part by burning gas fast enough, right!?!

Maybe we need a law that says we all have to buy a minimum amount of gas. But wait, we already do that. It's hidden in the $billions in freebies we give to the oil industry to give us the illusion that gas is only $2.50/gallon.

This logic is kinda like wetting-the-bed to stay warm. We have 80,000 pound tractor-trailors each doing 80 mph all over our highways 8-12 hours a day and do about a thousand times the wear and tear of a car on our crumbling highways and yet don't pay nearly enough in taxes and fees to cover all the damage. This means that our tax money is hard at work giving the trucking industry a virtually free infrastructure. So basically the highway repair funds are being bogarted by the trucking industry. Everytime someone suggests passing the costs back to the truckers, their lobbyists scare voters into believing that they'll only pass the costs on to the consumers. This BS always works, yet trucking is not a perfectly inelastic market. The consumers would surely find a way to get goods shipped by more cost effective means and truckers' marketshare would shrink (truckers don't want voters to figure that out). Instead, we hide the true cost of shipping in our taxes the same way we do with energy costs.

Yet the problem is we aren't collecting enough taxes? Is this just me? It is, isn't it?

[repete86]

Good. Maybe they'll stop building roads through what's left of the American wilderness. We have destroyed this country in only about 200 years. 200 years ago, a squirrel could go from the Atlantic ocean to the Mississippi River without touching the ground. Now we've destroyed it all. It's time to stop expanding and start preserving what little is left. Maybe let some of te roads crumble and let the wilderness take the land back.

[Silveredwings]

Exactly.

Another one...

U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters who chairs the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission says "People also aren't driving as much as they once did"

So, where is the problem? Sounds like fiscal mismanagement to me.

[Silveredwings]

Yeah, I smell Cheney's office in there somewhere.

[Spule 4]

So, the road tax will go up like Europe. But here is the real wave of the future, and not just in the UK, they are proposing it here:

http://www.theherald.co.uk/mostpopul..._row_ahead.php

http://news.com.com/E-tracking,+comi...3-5980979.html

[Snax]

Just think of all of the wonderful road maintenance that could have been performed with the money we have spent on Iraq. It's a catch-22. We spend our money assuring cheap oil, requiring us to use SUVs to navigate the crappy roads, consuming more fuel in the process. (And making the oil barrons rich too of course.)

[Matt Timion]

You mean they actually USE that money for the roads? I remember in California (when I lived there) there was a big stink because the money allotted for the roads was used on something else.

The state government then asked for more money to help pay for the roads.

[cfg83]

Hello -

This is pretty nuts. Usual short-sightedness. Fewer gallons burned means less CO2 means less environmental problems down the line. What a mess.

This is a good place for a lawyer and a class action law suit!

CarloSW2

[The Toecutter]

Our government is way too big. When they mismanage our money, they complain that Americans aren't generating enough of it for them, and then proceed to make sure consumption doesn't slow. Meanwhile, they refuse to address the other problem with our roads: tractor trailers.

Shipping by rail might be cheaper, but there's nowhere near the chain of industries and nowhere near as much profit involved.

Our government and the industries that control it want to maximize consumer spending to maximize economic growth. Without constant growth, they won't maximize their profits.

If we do reduce consumption enough, their ultimate goal is to get that money another way by violating our rights, keeping track of where, when, how much, and how fast we drive.



Some of these fucktards should be shot.

[Silveredwings]

Originally Posted by theclencher

Ewww!

Gee whiz Mr. Turmail, what was your first clue?

These kind of articles are so obviously slanted that you can see who really writes them. It's FUD perpetrated to keep the public confused and wondering what should happen. You and I know we just need to take a few f'ing hand out of the cookie jar. But that's politics for ya.

Originally Posted by The Toecutter

Shipping by rail might be cheaper, but there's nowhere near the chain of industries and nowhere near as much profit involved.

I think if we gave rail an equal footing, it would have a much higher profitibility. Remember, trucks have a nearly free roadway, and a large portion of their fuel subsidized. So that points to the other major source of the FUD: if we changed from trucks to rails, there would be less oil burned. It always comes back to oil now doesn't it?

How about we either give rail shippers the same perks or take them away from truckers. If only we had a government that answered to the people instead of a lapdog press.

BTW, I think bullets are too good for them: put 'em all in an oil-cracking tank. Then at our burn rate, they'll be gone in about 3.7 nano seconds. I'd gladly pay 40 odd cents a gallon tax to see that happen.