With gas prices at record levels, and continuing to raise (rise?), are you now sorry that you bought that Sports Utility Vehicle?

No, because we bought the most economical vehicle that suited our needs. Since it is a lease, we try to drive the car more, to keep the mileage low. Hubby has that whole 6 mi round trip to work, we use it for long trips, and going to Lowe's or soccer practice. Hubby is the coach, so we need to haul all the equipment. That's really all we use it for, so it doesn't eat up much $ for gas anyway.

Not at all.

I've never seen the draw to SUV's, they guzzle gas and I would imagine someone with a behemoth like a Suburban of Excursion would have problems parking.

My aunt has a Hummer. Talk about gas guzzling. She claims parking is easy as anything else she's ever driven. Not to mention the Hummer got stuck in the snow during a storm back in the middle of winter.

H2's are overrated for off-road.I see alot of mpegs of H2's stuck on the Jeep forums.


Greedy's quote of the day:"My JEEP is not a SUV and your SUV is not a JEEP"

We gotta it pretty good...UK gas is around $6-7/gal I think or something like that.

One thing I hate is that when I use my ATM card to get gas at WAWA they max it at $40 and it gets to $40 before I'm totally full.

Anyone here get gas at Castco or Sams Club?How much cheaper?

Gas in the UK is about 4pounds a litre! I've got a friend that rented a small car over there and his little economy car cost him 40pounds to fill his tank half way. Gas in Sweden, however, averages around $1.02 per litre.

I don't believe tha SUV's like a Hummer would be easy to park, I've got trouble with my sedan which is classified as a small car.

Litre what the heck is that???Pounds...pounds of what???

You know America is gonna be completely metric by 1980...

damn it man speak english...oh wait a minute

We're a little behind aren't we? We probably should've switched since the rest of the world uses the metric system!

1 litre = 1.05669 US Quarts
1 US Quart = 0.94635 litres

4 quarts = 1 gallon

See! I did pay attention in science class!!!

Current Exchange Rates:
1 U.S. dollar = 1.841 British Pound
1 European Euro = 1.51 British Pound

See! I did pay attention in economics class!!!

Wow, I thought the Pound was worth more than the dollar and the Euro.

I call BS

you asked Jeeves or goggled...

I would have been impressed if you answered: $5.76561 US dollars per/one US gallon of gas in the UK

The Google toolbar is my best friend. (I really need to get a life )

I figured a genius, much as yourself, Greedy, would do the math.

Probably did it in your head, too, eh? No calculators for you!

<just kidding!>

I call BS on myself...I just guessed

If I'm gonna guzzle gas, I'd rather do it in a sports car!

I had an Explorer, back when it was the biggest thing on the road that most folks would own. I loved it. With all of the costs involved, you're not gonna buy something like that unless you REALLY want it and can afford it. So IMO changes in the cost of gas aren't likely to bother you any more than they do anyone else.

My issue is with the fact that you have to go hunting to find the best deals. The most convenient gas stations always seem to charge the most, and there's a wide range of prices being charged by different stations.

I just can't believe that so many people are still flocking to buy these things when gas is so high! I wonder if we'll ever go back to the days of gas being $0.99 a gallon.

Here's a flash back...1981 gas 2.99/gal

Really, I was only 2 at the time so I don't remember. I remember the summer I graduated from high school it was 99cents, and that's the lowest I ever remember it being.

When I first started driving, gas was 24-29 cents/gallon. The MOST I EVER remember paying was around $1.89-$1.90. And, I do remember lining up for gas in '74. Also, rationing. If you had an even number tag, you could only get gas on even numbered days, odd tag-odd days.

I don't ever remember over $2/gal. (at least for regular grade).

Maybe Greedy is from California, where I think gas in San Fransisco topped out at $3.25 or so.

hmmmm that's the first thing to go...

I know I just read it the other day 1981 $2.99/gal somewhere.It probably was premium and in Kalifornia somewhere...

That could be WVU-M. CA gas is topping out around $2.25 now. They run that specially formulated gas out there, so they're limited in who can supply it. Other areas of the country can get their gas from just about anywhere else. The only thing we have specially formulated is winter gas and summer gas.

Whoops. Missed Greedy's posting above. Greedy, you're probably right, in some areas of CA it probably is getting very close to $3.00.

"I've never seen the draw to SUV's, they guzzle gas and I would imagine someone with a behemoth like a Suburban of Excursion would have problems parking. "

After being in one car accident in a Honda (passenger), we weren't even moving; hit head on by an old Buick or something similar at 55 mph and going through the windshield and being re-ended in a Subaru, I want something big; it makes me feel safe. I also want room to carry passengers. I don't find a problem with the gas consumption of my Expo and it isn't hard to park.

I read something recently that SUV drivers typically are more efficient in the trips they make -- squeezing in several stops in one trip vis-a-vis several "little trips" for more fuel-efficient cars. I can't remember if it all came out in the wash, statistically, but it looks like the gas used/passenger for various vehicles isn't nearly as far apart as the mpg would suggest.

I don't buy it Tfiery, I think people with an Chevrolet Suburban or Impala are generally going to make the same amount of trips depending on their lifestyle. I just don't see the need for them. People make the case that they're safe, but what about SUV's being more likely to have roll overs.

Well, it's your prerogative to disbelieve the data, but that's what I've read -- and it's from pretty good sources. But this does make sense -- gasoline consumption isn't perfectly inelastic. People do seem to respond more carefully to increasing costs when they bear a significant amount of those costs, so I could see why a person driving an SUV would be more careful about getting the most out of her driving when gas prices climb. I don't know of many people who like to waste much money, regardless of how wealthy they are.

I have a colleague here at Cato who has an SUV and a Honda Insight hybrid. When asked about the apparent contradiction, he explains that each is the rational choice for the type of driving that it's used for. He and his wife use the Insight to do errands and to commute to work while they use the SUV for family outings with the kids and to get in and out of their home in the winter. (They live in the boonies.)

As for SUV safety, I've actually read several academic reports on that. It is true that SUVs are more prone to fatalities from rollover accidents than other vehicles BUT they are considerably less prone to fatalities from other types of accidents. I've read two academic articles on SUV safety performance that I thought were especially interesting. One, done by Doug Coate and James VanderHoff of Rutgers crunched the data and, after controlling for the fact that SUVs are typically driven on worse roads, found the fatality rate in accidents involving SUVs is lower overall than cars, even when you factor in rollover AND "vehicle aggressiveness" (i.e., the propensity for increased injuries in a vehicle struck by an SUV). The big reason for that is a lot of accidents (including fatal accidents) are single-vehicle (car into ditch, car into tree, car into phonepost, etc.), and those are the accidents where SUVs really perform well vis-a-vis cars.

However, Michelle White of Cal San Diego (who's one of the best data crunchers on the planet, IMHO) took that analysis further, factoring in that SUV drivers are typically safer drivers (usually parents, older, upper-middle class -- all of which are statistically correlated with safer driving patterns regardless of the vehicles they drive). Once that's factored in, SUV-involved accidents are slightly more likely to involve fatalities -- though the SUV occupants themselves are less likely to be killed.

Most interestingly, White found that the most dangerous vehicle on the road, when measured by passenger miles, is -- the bus. That took her (and a lot of other people) by surprise, but the data are pretty darn strong. Meanwhile, it looks like the safest vehicle is -- the minivan. And interestingly, minivans seem to be coming back into style.

Like I said before, people should spend their money the way they want, just so long as they assume all of the costs. SUV drivers consume a lot of gas, but they pay for that gas. For me to get angry at them for that is as silly as me getting angry at a person for buying a big gold ring -- why should I, if he paid the cost? I think SUVs are silly, but then I think NASCAR is silly, West Wing is silly, and hip-hop is silly. But people can spend their money on such silliness, just like I spend my money on the silliness of Orioles games.

Buying Orioles tickets, however, is different from buying gas because there can be Orioles games forever, but oil will not be here forever. Orioles games also don't pollute our enviroment.

Oh yeah? What about all the beer that has to get recycled?

Well, all human activities pollute -- but those emissions can be counterbalanced if they're low. And, as I noted above, vehicle emissions are remarkably minimal because of technological innovation, regulation, etc. I would go so far as to say an SUV today has way lower emissions than an econobox Pinto of 20 years ago.

As far as running out of oil, let's dispense with that myth and instead accept reality: the world will run out of oil at about the same time that we'll run out of sand, stone, or sunlight. Oil is an amazingly common mineral, and it's becoming more plentiful. The trend in price per barrel of in-ground deposits keeps going down over time, which shows that it is becoming less scarce, not more.

I know this flies in the face of conventional wisdom, but conventional wisdom misunderstands how oil works. Oil deposits aren't like the oil tank on your furnace -- you don't turn the valve and it runs out at a steady rate that gradually falls as the pressure decreases and then stops when it's all gone. Think of oil deposits as more like sponges holding liquid. The harder you squeeze the sponge, the more liquid you get out. Right now, world oil production doesn't squeeze the sponges too hard but stll gets a lot of oil to run out of the sponges — it squeezes them somewhat hard for deposits in places like the U.S., but barely touches them in places like the Middle East where it seems like you can strike a gusher with an ice pick. But there is so much more squeezing that can be done, and so many more sponges that can be found. Two enormous oil fields are now being exploited in Canada and one gigantic field in Russia that may single-handledly pull that country out of its economic malaise. More such discoveries will come.

The best measure of whether we're running out of oil is the fight over drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve. As long as ANWR isn't tapped -- and as long as oil companies only want to tap ANWR on the cheap without much enviromental protection -- then oil isn't scarce. If oil ever were to become scarce, the public would rabidly demand that ANWR be tapped, and the oil companies would gladly accept stringent enviromental regulation in exchange for tapping the precious oil. But as long as the Greens don't want ANWR (and the Atlantic and Pacific shelfs) tapped at all and the oil companies don't want more environmental regulation of drilling, then oil isn't scarce.

So, why are gas -- and more importantly crude oil -- prices so high right now? The main reason is the world oil market is dominated by a few players that have enough power to manipulate prices in short-run spurts. And those players aren't Exxon or BP, but are OPEC and the large Saudi government-owned monopoly Aramco. But, as oil fields keep coming online in Russia, Canada, and other non-OPEC nations, OPEC and Aramco's ability to game the market will decline.

"People make the case that they're safe, but what about SUV's being more likely to have roll overs. "

You can rollover any vechile if you drive unsafely and out-of-control. You can't drive an SUV like a little sports car.

Exactly. The SUV may suffer less damage when it hits a deer, slides off the road and hits a tree, smacks your car in the middle of a parking lot (more likely IMO), or hits someone in front of it who slams on their brakes or cuts it off. But the sports car won't roll so easily, grips the road better, turns on a dime, stops much more quickly, and can more easily accelerate and decelerate, all to nimbly AVOID various hazards including other drivers.

SUV owners MAY seem to drive more safely, but they don't in the snow (not around here at least) and the majority of them can't even manage to stay in their own lane. Never mind that they're a major visual obstruction. They're a threat to everyone else on the road.

Aggressive drivers buy all sorts of cars, though I'll admit that more of the reckless, inexperienced young "men" buy smaller and more sporty cars (though few can afford a true sports car unless Mummy of Dadums buys it for 'em). But for the mature, skillful, and reasonably restrained driver, the sports car is the better option IMO.

People will always make consessions and buy the gas they may b***h about it but few will do anything about it. Does anybody else see the connection between our Big Oil Man Prez and the price of fuel. Also it's the same thing every year spring / summer rolls around and the price of fuel increases... winter rolls around and the price of heating fuel increases... we need more regulation they do it with milk why can't they do it with fuel?

"SUV owners MAY seem to drive more safely, but they don't in the snow..."

I guess you've never seen me on the road because I drive safely in the snow. I'm not sure why someone wouldn't. In my opinion, the most reckless drivers in the snow are tractor and trailers. After the blizzard of 96, I was driving on I81 near Williamsport and a tractor and trailer driving too fast lost control and I ended up down the embankment. By the next winter my car was gone and I had a truck.