US Folks avoiding the pumps on May 15th in protest...

Jayhawk · Post by **Jayhawk** » Tue May 08, 2007 11:39 am

SNOPES states this is just an urban legend.

While I deeply sympathize with the ideas behind it, I can't imagine it having any real impact whatsoever unless we can all go without gas for a month or two.

Eric

fearfaoin · Post by **fearfaoin** » Tue May 08, 2007 11:53 am

Jayhawk wrote:SNOPES states this is just an urban legend.

hyldemoer · Post by **hyldemoer** » Tue May 08, 2007 1:16 pm

Jayhawk wrote:SNOPES states this is just an urban legend.

While I deeply sympathize with the ideas behind it, I can't imagine it having any real impact whatsoever unless we can all go without gas for a month or two.

Eric

Can do, in fact buying gas no more often than every couple months is normal for me
but then I live where I live so I can use public transportation.

When I do drive, its my Honda Civic.
My husband drives a Toyota Prius.

missy · Post by **missy** » Tue May 08, 2007 2:28 pm

I moved to my current home location n 1979 to be less than 2 miles away from work. Ok - I was also moving OUT of my parents' house at the time, but that was 25 miles away from work, so it made sense to move close.

Fast forward to March of this year. While I still work for that same company, I now work at a different job, and my office location was moved to a site 25 miles away from my home - but only 2 miles away from where I grew up!!!!

I can't win!

Seriously, we MUST do something, at least in this area, about mass transit BEFORE we try to move away from oil. I checked into having Noah ride the Metro bus for his volunteer work at the Zoo this summer. The Zoo is 6 miles from our house. In order to get there by 9am - he'd have to catch a bus at 6:45am, go all the way south downtown (about 10 miles away), make a transfer, then go 8 miles north back out to the Zoo (the 6 miles from our house is more east to west). I think his CO2 "footprint" will be a lot less in the long run if Tom or I drive him!

And there's not even an option, if I wanted to, of riding mass transit to work. And I can't afford to move back out there - compared to the farming community I grew up in, it's now a "suburb" of $500,000+ houses!!!

jim stone · Post by **jim stone** » Tue May 08, 2007 2:29 pm

Jayhawk wrote:SNOPES states this is just an urban legend.

While I deeply sympathize with the ideas behind it, I can't imagine it having any real impact whatsoever unless we can all go without gas for a month or two.

Eric

http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/nogas.asp

jim stone · Post by **jim stone** » Tue May 08, 2007 2:39 pm

This one is worth reading too, IMO, concerning
the underlying economics of the problem.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/gasprices.asp

BillChin · Post by **BillChin** » Tue May 08, 2007 6:28 pm

I checked into having Noah ride the Metro bus for his volunteer work at the Zoo this summer. The Zoo is 6 miles from our house. In order to get there by 9am. ...

Six miles is about idea for a beginning bike commuter. It is summer so it is light out for a long time. Rain can be a problem, but can be managed. For a young, healthy person, six miles is 20 to 40 minutes depending on elevation changes and weather. The one caveat is that there needs to be a route with decent shoulders or right of way. A lot of places don't have this, and riding a bike solo on a busy road with fast moving traffic, is like playing emergency room roulette.

As for mass transit, unfortunately, many cities don't have enough population density to make that work. Mass transit is a money loser, even in cities with tons of people all on top of each other. To run a bus that would get Noah to the zoo in a more direct way, would probably end up costing taxpayers something like $10 to $100 per passenger trip because of low ridership and high fixed costs for buses. It probably wouldn't help much with overall gasoline consumption, because most folks will choose to drive even if a bus ride only cost $1.

djm · Post by **djm** » Tue May 08, 2007 6:54 pm

BillChin has pointed out the reality. Noah must get a job closer to home because we can't afford to drive hime, plus it would be too destructive to the environment.

djm

JS · Post by JS » Tue May 08, 2007 7:19 pm

djm wrote:

One thing that always strikes me about people who immediately call for everyone to switch to fuel-efficient cars is the total lack of understanding that no hybrid or fuel-efficient anything has been created so far that is more road-worthy than a golf cart. People around here started getting rid of them after the first winter when they realized these puddle-jumpers couldn't even handle a four-inch snow drift. What has been produced so far is useless to a large number of motorists who would like to convert, but haven't been offered a reasonable, working alternative.

I'm not sure at all that a relatively costly and highly engineered car is the answer to the problem, but we have been driving our Prius in upstate NY winters for four years now (including several years of a real beast of a commute involving 3 interstates and a hill), and it has done just fine. Snow tires are useful, although they do reduce the efficiency some. It's not as sure-footed as the Subaru we use for serious people hauling, but it's no slouch. Winters north of here are undoubtedly worse, and if I were living on Tug Hill or some other snow-ridden place I'd probably think twice about anything without high clearance and all-wheel drive. But for southern New England and points south, outside of real rugged going, I'd think you'd be ok.

pipersgrip · Post by **pipersgrip** » Tue May 08, 2007 7:30 pm

i wont buy gas that day.

anniemcu · Post by **anniemcu** » Tue May 08, 2007 7:41 pm

Snopes not withstanding, if folks *want* to make the effort, and I do encourage more effort than one day of not buying gas, it is certainly still a viable move. I have been getting a lot of very positive response to the host of emails i sent on, so pooh-pooh all you want, I'm doing it. And I am most assuredly not alone. I didn't start this, and I have heard many people talking about over the last week or so.

I am also making sure that I do no more driving than necessary, making sure that more than one thing gets done, and letting neighbors know when and where I am going in case they need a ride or perhaps one of us can save the other a trip by picking something up for each other. It *does* make a difference, and I hope that folks will remember that. Car pooling is a really good thing as well. Drive less, buy less gas. Not a very difficult concept, and often more doable than not.

Even a small dent in their armor is still a dent, and it does prove that the consumer has the power *if they decide to exercise it*.

cowtime · Post by **cowtime** » Tue May 08, 2007 8:04 pm

......and then there are those of us who drive for a living....talk about being at the mercy of.......

I drive a Jeep Wrangler RHD that gets, at best 13 mpg. Horrible, but it's the only thing available that has factory rhd. Yes, I am paid mileage, but less than the IRS will allow any of you as a deduction if you use a vehicle for business! and less than the company allows for their company owned vehicles. My mileage payment barely pays for my gas at this point. Much more of a price jump and it won't even pay for that. The mileage, theoretically pays for the vehicle, upkeep and repairs AND gas. What a JOKE!

Yeah, I'd gladly drive something that used less gas. I'd buy it tomorrow if it's rhd and big enough for my mail load and someone would just make the thing. Grrrrrrr. Right now, with gas around here at $2.86 today- I buy it every day- I'm averaging $120 a week.

I wish I had a choice.

anniemcu · Post by **anniemcu** » Tue May 08, 2007 8:14 pm

cowtime wrote:......and then there are those of us who drive for a living....talk about being at the mercy of.......

I drive a Jeep Wrangler RHD that gets, at best 13 mpg. Horrible, but it's the only thing available that has factory rhd. Yes, I am paid mileage, but less than the IRS will allow any of you as a deduction if you use a vehicle for business! and less than the company allows for their company owned vehicles. My mileage payment barely pays for my gas at this point. Much more of a price jump and it won't even pay for that. The mileage, theoretically pays for the vehicle, upkeep and repairs AND gas. What a JOKE!

Yeah, I'd gladly drive something that used less gas. I'd buy it tomorrow if it's rhd and big enough for my mail load and someone would just make the thing. Grrrrrrr. Right now, with gas around here at $2.86 today- I buy it every day- I'm averaging $120 a week.

I wish I had a choice.

Yup... and many more like you, too. We need some significant changes, and higher gas prices is a false treatment.

missy · Post by **missy** » Wed May 09, 2007 3:32 am

Noah could easily ride his bike to the zoo - he does to his "real" job 2 miles away.....
......except y'all haven't seen the "hills" in Cincinnati. And the zoo is on the other side of the "valley", so he's got a down and an up both ways.

I think riders in the Tour would have problems with the hill near our house. I know pro-level riders, with pro-level equipment, that have given up on it.

Tyler · Post by **Tyler** » Wed May 09, 2007 5:48 am

Damn, jim stone beat me to it

I can shed some light, however, on the supposed Pogue carburetor urban legend...

Though based in some fact, the Pogue carb is not the supposed "super efficient" device named in many variations on this legend.
A Mr. Charles Pogue did invent a carburetor that supposedly got 35mpg in a Ford Mustang, however, it also lost nearly all it's power (this claim, apparantly the only test trial made by someone other than Pogue himself, is still unsubstantiated)
The claims that Pogue made regarding his carb were pretty lame, IMHO, based on my experience with fine tuning carbs for economy (which, BTW, my 57mpg Mini I built kicks the shiat out of any of Pogues trials by a long shot, with a standard SU carb no less). Also IMHO, he didn't have the first idea what he was dealing with in the first place. His claims violate several principles of thermodynamics
I've come close to duplicating Pogues trials (almost by accident, mind you, I wasn't shooting at his numbers when I made my mods to my car) with a Mustang on my Mustang 289 coupe by simply adding an electric hi-vol pump, high pressure fuel lines, smaller jets and a rifled high-rise carb plate and a K&N filter housing, filter, etc. The final result was a leaned out v-8 that got 27mpg, give or take. A good portion of that gain also rests with the fact that I have a very kickarse (and 'spensive) Holly carburettor.

Here's a link where you can read about carburetor experts who actually met with Pogue and outline some of his claims and why they don't and CAN'T work.

http://www.mikebrownsolutions.com/fish3.htm

Here's a link to the urban legend that came from Pogue and his claims.

http://www.snopes.com/autos/business/carburetor.asp