Would This Change People's Gasoline Buying Habits?

hey I put as much in Prius.

IMHO you have 2 categories of people: the ones which drive alot and the ones which aren't. Living in suburb community where everyone has to drive at least 25mi to get to work I can tell that the change had already happened: there aren't that many trucks/FUVs in commute traffic. It is mostly small older econo-boxes, quite a few Geo Metros, some smaller SUV on gas grizzler end. The ones who drive monstrosities are the ones who don't drive much on daily basis.

 

I've always thought it made no sense to change the number the hand points at. Clock time is arbitrary. If you want more daylight after work, start and end work earlier. Same with school. The Earth will rotate exactly as it always has, no matter what you do with the clocks.

I like the story (whether it's true or not) about the family whose house sat right on the time zone line, and all the confusion that caused. When it was supper time in the bedroom, supper was still an hour away in the kitchen. And the parents had to re-set their watches before they went into the kids' room to wake them for school.

As for gas pump clips, I don't remember if my local gas station has them or not. But I do know that I've driven places (Canada, maybe?) where they don't have them. It's a nuisance, but a minor one. It means I have to finish pumping gas before I can clean the windshield. No biggie. I used to be annoyed with places where you have to pay in advance, but now I just use my credit card at the pump, and I don't even have to go inside at all unless I want food or drink.

 

around here, most people are talking about how cheap gas is.

 

In Southern Cal we still see some premium pumps at $4+, my guess is big oil is preparing us for $5 a gallon this coming summer.

 

i wish o'bama would beat them to it and throw a buck tax on.

 

What we really need is a return to those old fashioned gravity fed gas pumps, where the gas enters a clear chamber at the top of the pump, and is measured visually before draining into the tank.

 

If the President actually had the power to do that without Congress, I'd ask him to put $15 of tax on each gallon.

So what happens if your house is right on the line, and the line cuts through the bedroom, and the bed is right on the line? The husband gets AB plates, and the wife gets SK plates. But then if they decide to switch sides of the bed, for whatever reason (one gets up at night more often and so does not want to be on the wall side) they have to re-register their cars to switch provinces?

 

In the bay area, there was a time where we had clips, then recently all the pumps had them removed until a "new" style of clip could be added. This lasted several months before all the new style clips were added.

Here's a simple solution (that will never be enacted) to make a difference with people driving gas guzzling, 20+ gallon tanks. Don't let the gas stations take ATM/Credit cards. Cash only.

I think too many people are insulated about prices because they put their card in at the pump, pump until filled, and leave. They never see the final cost. If they had to go to the cashier and plunk down a $100 bill and get less that $20 back, I think they might start dreading going to the gas station.....and this might lead to a better choice their next time around when it comes to purchasing a vehicle.

 

you can't do that w/o killing economy.

You could do it by increasing tax gradually (2-3% a year) but then it is still a political suicide. I believe the last person to propose 50 cent tax to pay off national debt was Ross Perot, and look how it worked out for him.

or you could just keep card limit at 50$ not to rise it to 75$ as they did.

 

But why is it political suicide? If you want something, you pay for it. Want roads? Pay for it. People in general seem too uneducated to realize that you end up paying the same amount. If you don't pay a higher sales tax, then you end up paying higher fees on all other services. The use of a tax to restrict or ease use is simple and effective. It doesn't take away your freedom to be stupid and drive an H2. It just makes it more expensive to do so, and rewards those with Leafs/Teslas for helping pioneer the future. Seems pretty straightfowards

 

It works over here (but isn't popular). Petrol costs the same in the UK as in the US BEFORE tax, but afterwards it is presently $7.51 a US gallon. People still have Range Rover V8's but it costs them to fill up. There again, if you can afford £80,000 on a car, you can afford £120 to fill it. The annual £500 a year 'road tax' just for having one is painful though.

 

It is more the psychology of handing over a big bill ($100) and getting a pittance in change that would force people to realize the economics. It is "invisible" when it goes on the credit/ATM card and then buried in a bill that comes a month later.

Heck, having an in car app that displays next to the fuel gauge that would calculate the cost to fuel up would be fantastic. Basically, a gallon * avg fuel price in the area. Watch the number rise as you drive (kinda like being your own taxi cab).

Of course, we could just ration gas.....

None of my ideas are workable in this day and age, but I think they all would be effective to some degree.

 

The 'user pay' philosophy could and should be applied to a great number of things. For some bizarre reason, the word 'subsidy' is mentioned all the time when discussing public transit, but very rarely when it comes to roads. The mis-education program has been so successful that people seem blissfully ignorant ("I don't know, and I don't care.") about what cars and roads really cost. We can spend millions of dollars on one highway interchange, and people cheer the improvement in travel times, yet a few thousand dollars on a pedestrian overpass is "too expensive."

An honest, straight forward person who told us the unvarnished truth would be run out of town and ripped to shreds in the media - not a chance they'd ever be elected.

 

Actually, when you borrow, you end up paying a lot more. But the present paradigm is to borrow at such long term that you leave the next generation to pay your debts. That's the modern recipe for getting something for nothing: run up the debt and then leave it for the next guy to pay. Of course, the economy goes down the toilet. I think that's the part that people don't understand: The economic price of carrying high debt.

This sounds reasonable. I wonder if people really don't pay attention to the big number at the gas pump. And of course going back to cash only would inconvenience everyone. Not just the guzzler drivers.

My car has something like this. It's not a continuous display. But I tell the car my cost for electricity, and then after every charge, the display shows how many kWh it took and the cost. Of course, they put these apps in electric cars to brag about how cheap it is to fuel them up.

 

As far as the money thing goes, I don't pay attention....at all.....to the amount I'm paying. I'm focused on

1) filling it up
2) not overfilling it
3) getting my receipt to calculate my MPG's.

I think most drivers would fall into category 1. It probably doesn't even occur to most people that #2 can happen. And fewer still will do #3.

I can truthfully say, I don't ever realize how much I spend when I fill up my car, because I charge it and it comes up as a charge among many charges on our Visa bill at the end of the month.

I can also truthfully say that I know my MPG's for my last fill and for my car's lifetime (see fuelly tab below). People of more limited income or who pay cash (or both), are keenly aware of how much they spend at the pump, because that is cash money leaving their hand and going into the gas station till.

 

Very true. I was more describing the "I don't want a 0.1% higher sales tax" crowd that then forces all other services to charge more. So instead of paying 0.1% spread out over those who buy more funding it more, it is now more a flat tax where everyone has to pay $X more for things like car registration, park usage, snow removal, that sort of thing.

Understanding that it costs money to borrow money is hard for most people to get. After the new whatever-they-call it bill that forced mortgage companies, auto dealership, and all loan people to show how much you are taking out, how much you pay a month, and how much you will pay overall if you pay the scheduled payments, many people I knew were "outraged" at how expensive loans had become because of this bill...

All it took was simple math to convince them otherwise. You pay how much a month for your old loan? And for how many months? So obviously your loan is only for $/mo * months right?

So when people can't grasp the concept on a micro scale, inevitably it becomes "scary voodoo magic" on the macro side of things.

 

I think my sister was typical: She ran her credit cards up to the max, because she just couldn't wait to get more stuff. Then when she got some money she'd pay them down as much as she could, and immediately run them back up to the max. Thus she was always paying interest on her full credit limit. From time to time she had to ask our dad for money because she'd spent so much on stuff she didn't need that she had no money for stuff she really did need.

I think she had no idea of how much she was spending on interest, or the real cost of all that stuff she bought on credit.

 

IMHO the government shouldn't spend resources making it tougher to pump gas. It won't do any good, only increase the size of bad regulation. Easiest thing would be to increase gas taxes, but....

hmm sounds like buying stuff they don't need runs in your family. Did you really need that electric porsche Your welcome to it if you can afford it, but take a look in the mirror.