On Wednesday 11 Sep 2002 7:58 pm, Kathy Salkin wrote:
> I agree, but tell me, how are we going to convince millions of
> Americans to give up their gas-guzzling cars?  We tried 25 years
> ago and it didn't work then, and won't work now. The number of
> mammouth SUV's out there on the road is BIG.  We Americans have too
> much of a love affair with our cars to give them up.

It's quite simple, you tax it. The polluter pays right. I do not
understand why the richest country in the world has one of the
cheapest gas prices. Sure you can have low price petrol for
commercial/public service vehicles, but slap a whacking big levy on
it for private use. UK petrol is about $4.50 a gallon at the moment.
The effect of this is that there is pressure on car makers to
research more efficient smaller engines. UK "Road Tax" is based on
engine size. Why do people need 3.5 litre engines (sure it "sounds"
gorgeous) but an efficient multi valve 1400cc engine can blast out
the same bhp.

> I drive a Ford Festiva, a tiny bug of a car which gets 33 miles to
> the gallon even with automatic transmission.

40 is more normal for a small automatic here.

> Also, the impact of the loss of revenue from the US would be made
> up in shipments elsewhere.  We may be a major importer of oil, but
> we are not the only customer.
>
> Kat
>

I'm with you Kat.