Many Americans are cutting back on everyday expenses as gas prices soar due to President Donald Trump’s war in Iran, now approaching the 10-week mark. About 44 percent of Americans said they’re driving less due to high gas prices, while 42 percent said they’ve slashed household expenses, according to a Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll. In addition, the poll revealed that 34 percent have altered travel or vacation plans. Americans are changing their behaviors as national average gas prices hit $4.43 per gallon Saturday, according to the AAA motor club. This time last year, the national average was just $3.15 per gallon. Patrick de Haan, a petroleum analyst for GasBuddy, said Saturday’s average price marked a sobering new record. “The national average price of gasoline has never been higher on the second day in May than it is today,” he wrote on X.
Not cutting out driving?
I had to deal with an office in the US recently. Still meeting together, still taking trips for “team building”. All while complaining about the high cost of fuel to travel. The remote work for the most part, but the higher up you go in their corporate ladder, the more travel and luxury they afford themselves. And then ask all their lowest workers to join in too, on their own dime.
Morons the lot of them.
We can’t cut out driving. American society is built around cars.
This is such a bullshit excuse, because while it’s true, there is no reason why Americans haven’t regulated cars to be more energy efficient, and why they haven’t built better public transport since the 70’s.
On average European cars have about 30% better mileage than American cars, and almost all energy saving technologies were invented and implemented in either Japan or Europe.
USA is a shitty country, first because they DEMAND these shitty huge cars with poor safety records, second because they DEMAND they are cheap to use, with no regard for climate change.
Americans drive more, and they drive less fuel economic than other places in the world with better regulation.
The net result is the average American pollute 2-3 times more than average for developed countries.
USA is a country of selfish psychopaths (on average), that refuse to take responsibility for their actions.
I’m not going to refute your overall assessment of Americans writ large (because I in large part agree.) I too wish we had better public transmit option. But what you’re saying ignores 1) the vast increase in distances the American needs to travel, and 2) the average American car isn’t less efficient, it’s (to your point) much larger. The lower efficiency comes from the size, not technology.
Maybe I’m biased because I’m in California (and not the shittier parts of the US), but I see California as every bit as responsible for automobile emission and safety laws as Europe or East Asia.
Is the average American selfish? Undoubtedly. Did Europe/Japan invest in public transmit when America didn’t? Also without a doubt. But I also think it’s not quite so easy to paint with that brush if you take into account what makes America different than Europe/Japan.
That should motivate to drive more gas efficient cars not less.
It is less efficient in that they use more gas, weight and aerodynamics are part of that equation. many American cars have piss poor aerodynamics, and they are heavier for the same size of car, in part because of bigger motors and a cheaper frame based construction. The engines are also typically way less efficient, using big V8 engines with poor efficiency, that you would simply never see in Europe. The widespread use of giant cars like the Ford F-150 is insane. It’s almost like people in Nebraska buy them because they “need” to be able to carry a surf board to the beach 2000 km away. So yes American cars are way less efficient on average.
IDK maybe you are, California is AFAIK leading USA regarding emissions, when California set a standard, the auto makers follow it, and by proxy the rest of USA get cars that follow the Californian standard.
Problem has been for decades that where efficient 4 cylinder engines have been standard in Europe, USA has used wildly inefficient V8 engines. So no the Americans have not been using the same technologies nearly as much. For instance when we got 4 valves per cylinder in Europe, Ford was way behind, and advertised what they called lean burn. A way inferior technology, that both yielded fewer HP for the same size engine, and had lower gas efficiency.
In Europe developments have been very much on the weight too, like the VW Polo 3l that could drive 100 km on 3 liter of gas, or 62,18 miles 0,79 gallon or 78 miles per gallon.
Part of achieving that was to use magnesium for the rims, and an extremely efficient 3 cylinder engine. This car was very popular here in Denmark, despite it was very expensive for the driving experience. But here most people are actively engaged in lowering the environmental footprint, while even in California such a car is probably unsalable.
As an example we don’t currently feel the oil crisis at all, because our household has zero dependency on oil, we use wood pellets for heating (Denmark is a relatively cold country), we have solar panels that cover 80% of our electricity needs throughout the year, and we drive an electric car we can charge from the panels.
Denmark as a country has 82% as a whole, so what we buy from the grid has similar efficiency, reducing our dependency on non renewable energy to only 4% for our household.
80+% of new cars sold in Denmark are electric.
I know Denmark is among the leaders in EV in Europe, just like California is for USA. But I expect you can see the difference between a European leading nation and a leading state in USA.
I know many Americans try to be more green, but the disinformation allowed in marketing makes it harder, and the lack of actually green production makes it near impossible.
In Europe we have way better democracies, and many European countries have parties to represent them that have a green agenda. An American voter mostly doesn’t even have the option to vote green.
Sorry for the rant, but as you maybe can see, USA is mostly dysfunctional in this area, and failed to learn the lesson of the oil crisis in the 70’s, while most of the rest of the world did. Which is extremely unfortunate, since USA has all the natural conditions that exist around the world to develop and implement renewable energies, and USA had the biggest research and development capacity for many decades. So USA idling along on a free pass has been very damaging to the global development too.
I totally agree, 360M children
and Trump is the #1 american
Absolutely, Trump is not the problem, he is a symptom of American selfishness and disregard towards others, also called psychopathy.
This problem is not just in waging war against peaceful countries, bombing girl schools, and help Israel committing genocide, and extorting allies. This is also internally, removing healthcare while giving very expensive tax cuts to the rich. America first is nothing but a rewording of ME FIRST, like small children that haven’t learned empathy yet.
I yearn for public transportation. Best I can do is drive 7 miles to a park and ride, and then ride a bus for 4 miles to work. Not exactly an alternative.
Me too! I try almost every day to choose [what little available] public transpiration options. But in nearly every case, it’s going to take twice as long as driving, and cost more than twice what my electric car costs to operate. And that’s not even factoring in the final mile problem, which is often a deal breaker unto itself.
I live in a medium California city with some public transit, but it’s still car/suburb centric.
Sure they can. But they won’t.
I have seen the data: they tend not to group going to work with other errands, they tend not to car pool or even try other forms of commuting.
In fairness, many companies forced workers to go back to offices so there is a lot of bullshit from money keeping them this way, which stops people from setting up social events locally or having the time (or energy) to do shopping after work.
Most people drive a couple of times a day (!) trips less than 6 miles long, and of those errands, shopping, kids and church are 76% of all miles traveled.
Also, there is no reason not to change, lots of US cities and groups are trying to redefine what cities and suburbs look like. But will the populace change?
How many of those trips in a car are to the gym?
None, I can’t afford the gym in this economy.