Have we gone insane worrying about gas prices? This is the question I asked myself after reading an article about how the ever increasing gas prices are leading to a surge in the number of thefts of gasoline. [ABC]
There is no question in my mind that gas prices are out of hand lately. The picture on the left was a joke played by a famously overpriced gas station in Menlo Park, CA a few years ago when gas was just getting above the $2.50 mark for Premium. Fast foward to 2005 and its normal for Bay Area commutes to pay $3.00 or more for a gallon of Premium.
Even the morning papers have large, front page articles about how expensive gas prices are forcing locals to change their driving habits and even lifestyles. It quote numerous owners of luxury cars and large SUVs about their lifestyle changes after they became unwilling to fork over $80 for each refill. The chart below compared the MPG, tank size and fill up cost of a BMW 330i, a American SUV and a Honda Civic. Even the Civic required over $30 to fill up becuase of its 13 gallon tank.
I hope this finally gets people to stop buying huge ass SUVs and crazy gas guzzlers if they do not need them. I mean how many high schoolers really need that F-350 Super Duty that gets 5-8 MPG? Not many. But if you are a contractor and need to haul 5 tons of bricks around then I have no problem with that being your primary car, and I dont mind even when people like that bitch about having to pay so much for gas. But its when some soccer mom complains that her Escalade only gets 10MPG and that she has to pay $80-100 per fillup that I want to just smack them. I mean you paid around $50k-$60k for your stupid Escalade so why cant you afford the $80 fill up? Or why in the hell do you need such a ridiculous vehicle if you only have 1 or 2 kids and dont even go to Tahoe or anything? I am sure the weekly Costco run will fit inside a normal sedan most of the time.
Anyways ... everytime I pull into my local gas station and fork over my $35 for 11-13 gallons of Premium gasoline I won't complain because although it sucks, its still better than paying $80-100 to drive an SUV. Long live the sports car :-) Because even though its MPG ain't great, at least I get to look cool while literally throwing my money out the window er... tailpipe.
posted by olouie @ 1:51 PM
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