[speedgibson] Speed Gibson: Cars Don't Guzzle Gas ...

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Posted by Speed Gibson:
Cars Don't Guzzle Gas ...
http://speedgibson.powerblogs.com/posts/1232232382.shtml


   Cars don't guzzle gas ... people do.
   Listening to the network news during the NARN today, I heard the term
   "gas guzzler" used as if accepted parlance, i.e., a purely factual
   attribute, not at all loaded or political.
   First things first. Mass market car dealers haven't sold a gas
   guzzling car in decades. You want a gas guzzling car? Try the 1958
   Buick Estate Wagon my parents drove for a couple of years. It was a
   mass of steel and chrome, maybe 4,000 pounds. Ford Falcons and errant
   pedestrians bounced off harmlessly. It got 7 miles to a gallon of
   premium gas around town.
   But even that Estate Wagon didn't burn a drop of gas just sitting in
   the driveway. Who burns more gas, the little old lady who proudly
   drives her land yacht to church on Sundays, the bus everywhere else?
   Or someone that chooses to live in Elk River, driving 500 miles a week
   commuting to their job and other venues in town, 20 gallons a week or
   so?
   What counts is total usage. The same applies to water consumption. Do
   we all have to accept bunny-tinkle shower heads and micro-flush
   toilets? Or just those homes with two or more [DEL: daughters :DEL]
   children, where the owners might take these actions anyway?
   The market regulates all this just fine, or would if the government
   would stop interfering.