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So let's say we raise gas tax. Does anyone have any confidence at all it would be used for the stated purpose or it would just be another "general fund" type thing.
i believe that if we hold the elected officials accountable, then yes, it should be used for transportation expenses.
i believe that if we hold the elected officials accountable, then yes, it should be used for transportation expenses.
We don't hold them accountable today. How many incumbants you think are going to get voted out in the November?
And I notice you said "transportation expenses". That's fine and dandy. But what if the intent is to fix the roads and it goes to some other transportation expense?
You seem to draw parallels with Europe, while failing to realize the differences that drove the behavior. European families on average are smaller than American families with one child households being the norm and three child households being rather odd. European roads and cities are narrower than in America, necessitating smaller cars. Europeans have always paid high fuel prices through taxation, pushing for the desire to have the most efficient cars possible. European cities and suburbs were not developed to be road dependent as they are in the U.S. removing the car as a necessity for regular daily transportation.
As for diesel engines, Americans as a whole have always had a distaste for diesel. Gas was generally very cheap, so the fuel economy benefit was negligible. Diesel engines that were originally tried in the U.S. were poor performers with multiple issues, turning many people off. People were also greatly turned off by the "dirty" emissions from diesel engines belching black smoke. Those early efforts were abortive and diesel engines remained relegated to truck use. Now, the greatest barrier to diesel engine use in the U.S. is the higher cost of diesel fuel and stricter U.S. emissions standards, that cut into the efficiency and add significant cost to an imported diesel.
i understand this history (cut off most of the post to save space). but there were foreign car companies that didn't follow down the same path as the u.s. companies, more or less. they continued to produce fuel efficient sedans, and even some wagons (audi avant, subaru outback, etc). as the american car companies focused on manufacturing the more profitibale SUVs and producing garbage sedans with crap quality and horrendous interiors that they dumbped on corporate fleets and rental agencies at a loss, to be able to meet the standards...people became further turned off to the sedans produced by american car companies. Gradually, the companies lost market share to toyota and honda and even hyundai. these companies focused on producing well-designed fuel efficient sedans that had enough space to meet most people's requirements.
i'm sorry - but i just don't buy that americans want these big clunker vehicles as much as the industry likes to claim we do.
the industry fights every advancement tooth and nail, while in other places in the world it happens with very little complaint.
yes, european roads are smaller...because they don't expand highways to make driving more attractive. they've invested their money in the mass transit infrastructure. chicken or the egg again...but they don't pander to the oil countries and companies, they've put their money into more efficient means of transportation all along the way, while america has dedicated itself to building bigger roads, bigger bridges, bigger parking lots, all while continuing to make vehicles larger, creating more dangerous roads (large vehicles that flip are more fatal in accidents, cause more damage to other vehicles that they hit, are harder to control in split second situations, etc. etc.), and all the while making it seem like we need even larger roads because we're now driving larger vehicles.
put an end to it. if the american people aren't smart enough to do it themselves, then i'm sorry to say it but yes, the government needs to step in.
we simply cannot keep building bigger more powerful vehicles.
we would be better off with smaller vehicles on the road. they would be more fuel efficient and would cause less damage. we wouldn't need to care about every new safety feature that is coming out, because accidents wouldn't be nearly as bad as they are right now.
Oh OK...we'll just take all the working class paycheck to paycheck folks residing in homes that are now worth much less than they were a few years ago effectively trapping them where they are at and turn around and jack up their fuel taxes since the government is unhappy with the revenue shortfall they created by mandating everyone buy more efficient cars. Screw them if they can't afford to run out and buy a new car that gets 40 MPG that they need to stack their kids like wood in the back of to get around. They should all be jamming themselves into the decrepit hell holes we call cities anyway.
Got it.
they could find a vw rabbit or golf that's 10 years old that gets 35+mpg. probably for less than $2,500.
they could find a vw rabbit or golf that's 10 years old that gets 35+mpg. probably for less than $2,500.
Well you're not getting a diesel one these days for $2,500 and the gas versions all get in the mid-20's. Not to mention that most at that age are going to need a timing belt replacement for around $1k and VW's in general aren't exactly known for their reliability.
However, I understand your point that there are cheap economical options out there, but even then many of the older ones and even current ones aren't pushing high enough MPG's to be similar to the cars that will be the norm in 2020. Most compacts from a few years ago had combined ratings in the upper 20's and even current one's scrap along at around 30 or so.
Well you're not getting a diesel one these days for $2,500 and the gas versions all get in the mid-20's. Not to mention that most at that age are going to need a timing belt replacement for around $1k and VW's in general aren't exactly known for their reliability.
However, I understand your point that there are cheap economical options out there, but even then many of the older ones and even current ones aren't pushing high enough MPG's to be similar to the cars that will be the norm in 2020. Most compacts from a few years ago had combined ratings in the upper 20's and even current one's scrap along at around 30 or so.
my TSX from 2006 gets 34mpg highway. surely early 2000 models like the civic, corolla, elantra, even camry and accord, can all be had. these are all cars that should get around 30mpg highway with little issue.
heck - you can buy a GM vehicle and they don't even use timing belts (for the most part) - they actually use chains! fancy that...using a part that lasts? one of the only things GM did right haha.
but there are plenty of cars to choose from that get high 20s and low 30s, especially on the highway. people need to wake up. i'm not as harsh thinking as the other poster was in his statement, but to a point, he's right. if you're cruising around in an old crown vic getting 15mpg, it's not my problem you've been an idiot for the past 5 or 10 years. everyone would have more change in their pocket if they selected a slightly more fuel efficient vehicle over the past 2 decades.
i understand this history (cut off most of the post to save space). but there were foreign car companies that didn't follow down the same path as the u.s. companies, more or less. they continued to produce fuel efficient sedans, and even some wagons (audi avant, subaru outback, etc). as the american car companies focused on manufacturing the more profitibale SUVs and producing garbage sedans with crap quality and horrendous interiors that they dumbped on corporate fleets and rental agencies at a loss, to be able to meet the standards...people became further turned off to the sedans produced by american car companies. Gradually, the companies lost market share to toyota and honda and even hyundai. these companies focused on producing well-designed fuel efficient sedans that had enough space to meet most people's requirements.
i'm sorry - but i just don't buy that americans want these big clunker vehicles as much as the industry likes to claim we do.
the industry fights every advancement tooth and nail, while in other places in the world it happens with very little complaint.
yes, european roads are smaller...because they don't expand highways to make driving more attractive. they've invested their money in the mass transit infrastructure. chicken or the egg again...but they don't pander to the oil countries and companies, they've put their money into more efficient means of transportation all along the way, while america has dedicated itself to building bigger roads, bigger bridges, bigger parking lots, all while continuing to make vehicles larger, creating more dangerous roads (large vehicles that flip are more fatal in accidents, cause more damage to other vehicles that they hit, are harder to control in split second situations, etc. etc.), and all the while making it seem like we need even larger roads because we're now driving larger vehicles.
put an end to it. if the american people aren't smart enough to do it themselves, then i'm sorry to say it but yes, the government needs to step in.
we simply cannot keep building bigger more powerful vehicles.
we would be better off with smaller vehicles on the road. they would be more fuel efficient and would cause less damage. we wouldn't need to care about every new safety feature that is coming out, because accidents wouldn't be nearly as bad as they are right now.
wake up and smell the coffee americans.
Not trying to defend gas guzzlers and I agree that the change is needed, I was just trying to place the reasoning into context. I do believe that oil dependence is a national problem and a major security issue. Obviously steps need to be taken to correct it.
The problem is that the government approaches everything in a knee jerk poorly thought out fashion when it comes to energy policy. Look at the original CAFE legislation, its effect was to REDUCE the overall fuel effeciency of the American car fleet. From CAFE, to emissions standards, to safety standards, to fuel taxes, to ethanol, the government creates more problems than they solve trying to "fix" everything. There is no cohesive plan to address the issues in concert, which is a large reason why the American auto industry does not have the seemingly forward vision of foreign makes. The foreign governments heavily control their manufacturers and what can be sold, but they do it in a comprehensive fashion.
As for the American companies, again, they make what people want. Why did pickup truck sales increase by over 100% from 1970 to 1978 and haven't looked back since? It wasn't that people suddenly had more things to haul, it's that pickup trucks offered the things buyers use to look for in cars. The government fubar'd big time by enacting poorly planned legislation.
The foreign companies always specialized in small cars with high efficiency low displacement engines, because that is what their home markets required. Even then, foreign nameplates weren't really taken seriously in the U.S. until the mid-90's when people who prefer cars finally became fed up with what the American companies were offering (the rental fleet refuse you talked about) and the quality of the imports surpassed the American cars.
Even then, the foreign nameplates almost all universally jumped on the truck/SUV/minivan bandwagon...because it's what consumers were buying. The foreign cars have also even become infected with the bloat tied to regulations in the U.S. A scant 20 years ago you could buy a Honda CRX that got 41 city and 50 highway while still returning "fun" performance. That car was killed by emissions regulations sapping its performance and hundreds of pounds of added weight from safety mandates.
This ties directly in to the current situation where we are mandating more efficient cars only to turn around and look for creative ways to tax the people who buy them do to lost revenue.
I'm not arguing change isn't needed, merely arguing that we need a singular well thought out plan on how we are going to get to our goal of being less dependent on foreign oil and taking the yoke off our economy. The problem is, no one has the balls to do it so we add up with a hodge podge of legislation that sounds good, but really only ends up costing us money.
If they want to do it right, they should have never instituted CAFE and either followed the Japanese model of capping engine size without incurring tax penalties or followed the European model by taxing the crap out of fuel to drive efficiency and let the market find it's own solutions. However, it is a bit too late to suddenly decide right now after decades of suckling at the teet of cheap gas and desinging the entire country around it to flip a switch and move in a different direction.
Not trying to defend gas guzzlers and I agree that the change is needed, I was just trying to place the reasoning into context. I do believe that oil dependence is a national problem and a major security issue. Obviously steps need to be taken to correct it.
The problem is that the government approaches everything in a knee jerk poorly thought out fashion when it comes to energy policy. Look at the original CAFE legislation, its effect was to REDUCE the overall fuel effeciency of the American car fleet. From CAFE, to emissions standards, to safety standards, to fuel taxes, to ethanol, the government creates more problems than they solve trying to "fix" everything. There is no cohesive plan to address the issues in concert, which is a large reason why the American auto industry does not have the seemingly forward vision of foreign makes. The foreign governments heavily control their manufacturers and what can be sold, but they do it in a comprehensive fashion.
As for the American companies, again, they make what people want. Why did pickup truck sales increase by over 100% from 1970 to 1978 and haven't looked back since? It wasn't that people suddenly had more things to haul, it's that pickup trucks offered the things buyers use to look for in cars. The government fubar'd big time by enacting poorly planned legislation.
The foreign companies always specialized in small cars with high efficiency low displacement engines, because that is what their home markets required. Even then, foreign nameplates weren't really taken seriously in the U.S. until the mid-90's when people who prefer cars finally became fed up with what the American companies were offering (the rental fleet refuse you talked about) and the quality of the imports surpassed the American cars.
Even then, the foreign nameplates almost all universally jumped on the truck/SUV/minivan bandwagon...because it's what consumers were buying. The foreign cars have also even become infected with the bloat tied to regulations in the U.S. A scant 20 years ago you could buy a Honda CRX that got 41 city and 50 highway while still returning "fun" performance. That car was killed by emissions regulations sapping its performance and hundreds of pounds of added weight from safety mandates.
This ties directly in to the current situation where we are mandating more efficient cars only to turn around and look for creative ways to tax the people who buy them do to lost revenue.
I'm not arguing change isn't needed, merely arguing that we need a singular well thought out plan on how we are going to get to our goal of being less dependent on foreign oil and taking the yoke off our economy. The problem is, no one has the balls to do it so we add up with a hodge podge of legislation that sounds good, but really only ends up costing us money.
If they want to do it right, they should have never instituted CAFE and either followed the Japanese model of capping engine size without incurring tax penalties or followed the European model by taxing the crap out of fuel to drive efficiency and let the market find it's own solutions. However, it is a bit too late to suddenly decide right now after decades of suckling at the teet of cheap gas and desinging the entire country around it to flip a switch and move in a different direction.
well the CAFE standards were never done right, and were often influenced by lobbyists from the industry and from the oil industry. china does much stricter rules on their "fleet" economy standards. and it doesn't allow them to average it out among their entire fleet (like, having some chevy aveos and some chevy suburbans). they have strict standards on each class of vehicle.
you say the foreign nameplates jumped on the SUV wagon...they did so reluctantly and not always very well.
you can't get the honda crx, but you can get the honda civic si.
i don't like this connection between encouraging more efficient cars and the fact that the roads those cars drive on still need to be maintained.
yes, because we're getting more fuel efficient vehicles, that means transportation funds will not be adequate under current policy to maintain the roads. but honestly...the roads should be maintained no matter what type of vehicle is driving on them. if it costs $100M/yr to maintain a states' roads....then they need to collect $100M/yr. i don't really care how they do it, but they need to.
yes, the government's actions haven't been perfect. is that a failure of government? maybe. but it depends on how you look at it. again - conspiracy theorist-esque but....those rules that were discussed weren't done without the influence of the auto industry in america and the oil industry.
we've had numerous opportunities to reduce our consumption over the past 40 years. we don't capitalize on it EVER. personally, right now, i will never purchase a vehicle that gets less than 25mpg AVG. by the time i make my next vehicle purchase, that requirement will be up above 30mpg AVG. my hope is that my next vehicle purchase is somewhere around 50 or 60mpg on the highway. i see no reason why that vehicle wouldn't exist by the time i make my next purchase, and would be grossly disappointed if much better than that hope doesn't exist.
it may not makes sense to someone who lives in nyc and doesnt own a car. outside of densely populated cities, public transportation is a waste.
in a way yes in a way no it is a case by case basis
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