I just filled up the car at the local gas station with 92 octane (middle grade) at a cost of $3.06 per gallon. Ouch! It looks like we are just about at post Katrina / Rita days except there isn't any hurricane. Or at least one we can blame on nature.
There is a silver lining in the rising price of gas though and there is benefit to be appreciated. SUVs that get 12 miles to the gallon will start to disappear from the roads. You know them, their the vehicles that blind you at night when they're behind you and their headlights are so high that they reflect in your rear-view mirror causing a nearly total inability to see where you are going.
When they're in front of you, you can't see anything beyond them so you have no idea what the rest of the traffic might be doing. In addition, statistics show that the other party of an accident involving an SUV is 5 times more likely to be killed.
To me, high gas prices are a God-send. I hope they go to $5 a gallon and with our present administration hard at work on their "energy policy", I suspect they will. Then the SUVs will become a thing of the past and as far as I'm concerned, good riddance.
Perhaps the legacy of the Bush administration will be that he single handedly enacted policy to rid the roads of these monster vehicles that consume twice the gas as the average vehicle does thus driving prices up for everybody although I find it odd that the biggest SUVs are eligible for tax credits. I haven't figured that out yet but I suspect it was simply one of those lobbying things that slipped through on the national defense budget legislation.
There's one other way we might be rid of the SUV. Ford Motor company lost 8% today on the stock market and GM is struggling to outdo them but only lost just under 4%. What amazes me is that in the world of stocks, in order for someone to sell their shares, someone has to buy them. What thinking person would spend money on either of these companies?
At any rate, both companies are going down the toilet and when they do, the SUVs as we know them will be flushed along with them. Driving will be a much safer and more enjoyable...for those that can afford the price of gasoline.
