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Eric on Apr 26th 2008 at 8:33 am Scoot 66

Gas Prices? Bring ‘em on!

A couple of days ago, I read an article about the $100 fill up. Some folks were bitching that their 10 mile per gallon truck wasn’t as cost-effective as they hoped it would be.

Seriously?

Listen, if you drive anything that gets worse than 30 – 35mpg, you have no right to bitch about gas prices. Ever.

At this point, if you can afford a car, you can get one (even a mid-80′s compact) that gets 30 – 35mpg.

Or better yet, get a scooter. My Vespa gets 75mpg. My fill ups cost about $6. Sure, maybe I’ll someday have to deal with the horror of a $7 fill up, but I’m ready for it! What I’m *really* hoping for is the $10 fill up.

I have a two gallon tank. I usually fill up when it’s about 1.75 gallons. A $6 fill up means that gas is around $3.45ish. A $7 fill up would bring gas to an even $4, something I’m likely to see on my trip.

But a $10 fill up would be $5.75 per gallon. Hell, let’s go for an even $6.00 per gallon. It’s still over $2 cheaper than gas in England.

What would gas that’s $6 a gallon do to SUV drivers? Hell, probably not much. It would pretty much double their gas expenditures. However, I can’t imagine many would drive less. The folks in the article would pay around $150 per fill up. $150 for 200 miles (they said that’s their range). That’s $.75 per mile.

My range is 150 miles. With fill ups around $6.00, I pay a whopping $.04 a mile. Sure, I can’t pull a trailer full of horses, but I can cross the country a couple of times with a fuel budget of $400 for $10,000 miles. If the folks in the article were to do my trip, it would cost them $7,500.

Again, if you drive anything that gets less than 30 – 35mpg, you have no right to bitch about gas prices. And if you drive anything that gets 75mpg, you don’t have a whole lot to bitch about.

Even better yet, if you live in a city, there’s public transit, ride share, bikes, etc. A scooter or motorcycle is great because it can go pretty much anywhere a car goes (if you have a fast enough one) for a fraction of the cost.

So what will I do if gas prices climb to $7.00 a gallon? Nothing at all. My $.04 per mile will go up to $.07 per mile. But nobody is predicted $7.00 a gallon anytime soon. They’re predicting $4. And with such a slight increase, I’ll never even notice it.

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Incidentally, here‘s a fun article from Time Magazine (from almost a year ago) explaining that 100 years ago, gas was 18 cents a gallon—or about $4 in today’s currency.

2 responses so far

2 Responses to “Gas Prices? Bring ‘em on!”

  1. RoadDogNo Gravatar says:
    April 29, 2008 at 1:56 pm

    Bet you’re getting mighty excited. I know I would be.

    I’ll keep checking back with you.

  2. EricNo Gravatar says:
    April 29, 2008 at 3:35 pm

    Thanks! I’m getting excited and nervous. Really nervous.