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US Gasoline Prices Spur Telework
coondoggie writes "The price of gasoline may finally be changing the way many people commute and communicate. Anecdotal evidence says teleworkers are growing rapidly as a direct result of the cost of driving. The article links a survey indicating that in Q1 2007 the 19 largest US cable and telephone providers (representing about 94% of the market) acquired over 2.9 million net additional high-speed Internet subscribers, to a total of about 56.2 million. That can be attributed in part to more employees taking advantage of telework programs, experts say. Just this week the House Judiciary Committee's antitrust task force opened the first of a series of hearings on the oil industry. Its chairman noted that gasoline prices have soared well above $3 a gallon and asked, 'How did we get into this mess?'"
Why is tax on gasoline in the USA so ridiculously low?
Either that or our (UK here, but I'm sure it applies elsewhere in Europe) tax is ridiculously high. Hmmmmm.
I disagree:
http://www.personalrapidtransit.com/
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Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
I happened to be updating my money info in Quicken when this story popped up, so I thought I'd see how much gas prices really hit my pocketbook.
In the past 12 months, gas has constituted 0.81% of our family spending. For the 12 months before that, it was 0.66%. A good-sized bump in relative terms, I suppose, but one that can be absorbed without pain in relative terms because the number was so small to begin with.
My wife's office is only about five miles away from our house, but on the other hand, she does have to do a fair amount of driving for work-related reasons during the day, so I imagine her work-related driving isn't terribly outside the norm. I do work at home, though for non-gas-related reasons, but even if you double our gas spending to get to the more typical two-commute family, we'd still be at less than 2 percent of our family budget -- certainly not something that would put us in the poorhouse. And while we're not hurting for cash, we're certainly not wealthy -- between the two of us we make less than $100K a year, less than a lot of IT folks make with one salary.
My question is, are we some kind of freaks when it comes to gas use compared to most Americans? We live in a city neighborhood where we can walk to places for some basic errands and our grocery store is two-minute drive away; on the other hand, the city we live has a pretty lousy public transit system, so if we're doing things outside our neighborhood, we invariably drive. We don't drive a big SUV, but we don't drive a hybrid either: and our sedan is 13 years old, so I imagine it's not particularly fuel efficient when compared to new cars of the same size. Yet I feel like gas prices would have to triple before we'd be really forced to reorder our priorities to feed our car. Are we really so far outside the American norm when it comes to gas use? Or are gas prices just one of those things that you see two or three times a month and so you really notice when they go up, but it doesn't realy have as much of an impact on your life as you think?
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
Cars have circumvented public transportation because of their popularity, the American mentality, and marketing.
I live around Scranton PA - it's known as the electric city because it had the first successful electric trolley system in the U.S.. You could go pretty much anywhere using public transportation. Stops were frequent and the grid reached just about everywhere. Today the trolley system is no more. It was replaced by buses for a time, which worked pretty well, but is now reduced to about 8 bus routes that are not even a skeleton of what they once were. More often than not it takes you an hour to walk to the point where the bus will pick you up, and they show up once an hour.
I'm not saying that urban sprawl hasn't made it much of a catastrophe, but this area tends to show that even if you had the infrastructure in place in the first place, it's not a given that people will use it when given the option to drive cars.
*golf clap*
It's nice to see when someone really gets it. Gasoline, around the globe, isn't a supply and demand-priced commodity. Demand will always be there and as the worldwide population increases, it will only continue to rise. I give it about 20 years before we see a paradigm shift to alternative fuels like hydrogen really take hold. Even then, US corporations will prevent adoption until the last drop of oil is extracted from a previously protected wildlife reserve. NOW is the time that major infrastructure changes should be made, but instead of spending record profits on upgrading infrastructure, it's just going straight into the bank.
Don't be fooled by what CNN, Fox News, Wall Street Journal or anyone else tells you about the cause of oil prices. There are a hundred excuses at any given time and they are all lies. During Katrina, when we saw a huge spike, it was because Gulf refineries were damaged. Another week and it's trouble in Venezuela or Nigeria. Another week and it's failures in Iraq. None of it has any direct implications for Exxon and friends, because if it did, then they wouldn't be making huge profits...profits would be flat. The opposite is actually true and the current US administration is complacent on letting big oil do their thing.
However there has to be a limit. The more people spend on fuel, the less disposable income they have for other goods and services or even mortgages. Gas prices simply cannot continue to skyrocket while the economy limps along with GDP increases of 1.5% or less annually. Eventually it will become so expensive that people will trade in their Hummers for a Prius or start taking advantage of public transport (where available).
I really hate to even think of the US economy and fuel prices because the system is so corrupt there's not much you can do to influence change at this point. Just pray that we get a better administration in 2008.
For those comparing the EU gas prices to that of the US....
I found the public transportation system of Europe to be wonderful.
But the US is just bigger and that means its more difficult to create and maintain a public transportation system.
I live in Atlanta GA close to I-285 which is 60 miles full circle.
As slow as traffic can be, I'd prefer public transportation, if it only existed close enough to where I work, but it doesn't.
Perhaps the real problem is that of figuring out a better public transportation system. One that can handle the size problem yet help to keep traffic congestion to a minimum whele itself having low fuel cost.
Oh I know.....Teleportation........ hmmmm.... of work, not people (until that gets figured out....)
I always hear how over in Europe gas is SO much higher. What I never see is how far the average person that does drive their vehicle over there has to drive. According to a 2001 census of southeast england, the average commute is 12.9km, or around 8 miles. In france the average looks to be around 13.3km, about the same.
The average commute in the USA is around 20 miles. That's 2.5x what most europeans see that do drive and not use public transportation. So, europe I'm showing at around US$6.72 a gallon. The average in the US is US$3.28.
So, comparing apples to apples of say the same vehicle in both countries for the average commute, it is more expensive to commute here in the united states. $3.28 x 2.5 = $8.20.
Now, the average vehicle over here isn't known for gas mileage so actual out-of-pocket costs vary, but it does show that the common myth that europe is more expensive isn't always true.
Some food for thought there.
"I drank what?" -- Socrates