“I used to have a Land Rover, but now I need a new car. I don’t really know what I want, but I know I want a big car.”
This is a pretty typical statement you here around campus, especially down here in the South. But with gas prices reaching upward of $5 a gallon, the impracticality of the statement really starts to sink in.
If you haven’t already, prepare yourself for the mass barrage of complaining you’ll hear across the nation as gas prices continue to rise. People will blame anything — the government, the Middle East, karma, whatever helps distract them from two key points: America is driving too much, and the big, popular cars in America have some of the worst fuel efficiencies in the world.
James Foxall, a motoring journalist based in the United Kingdom, discussed how the average cost of regular unleaded gas across the pond has reached about $9.85, but opposed to simply whining, Europeans have adapted. Having a car in the U.K. that gets a “mere 35 mpg seems so last century.”
Sure, there is some resentment about being crammed into a small car, but the benefits are so high that being in a smaller, more efficient car has become increasingly more logical. Americans have more ground to cover than Europeans, but it seems this would have the effect of more efficient car choices, not fancier ones. Sure, it’s a pride thing, yet it’s unlikely that $4 or even $5 for a gallon of gas will cause mass unrest in the United States.
Should our gas prices approach anything close to the prices in Europe, we may see a significant number of people actually changing their habits when it comes to cars. Until then, I have no sympathy for the moaners.
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