Re: OT: How are you coping with gas prices?
- From: Michael Baier <h_michael_baier@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2005 16:53:24 -0400
We almost had this happen here right at work.
Some guys pulled in with a van and a trailer and started loading one of the
motorcycles in the parking lot.
The owner however saw them thru one of the windows and ran out.
What a chase. They already had a bike in their van from somwhere else.
I switched to riding my 92 Harley. Yes, I do have an American motorcycle.
It works great and in 13yrs never gave me any trouble whatsoever.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050826/ap_on_bi_ge/oil_inequality
Drivers Worldwide Feel Sting of Gas Prices By GEORGE JAHN, Associated Press
Writer
VIENNA, Austria - While U.S. motorists complain at having to pay $2.60 a
gallon, the relentless surge of oil prices is leading to even more colossal
gas pains for Europeans who were paying much more than Americans even
before crude began climbing.
So far there has been no repeat on the old continent of the tragic death of
an Alabama service station owner who was run over last week while trying to
stop a driver from speeding off without paying.
Still, the painful price increases have led to some changes in European
driving habits.
Germans are tanking up on home-heating fuel. Poles are crossing the border
to Ukraine to buy cheaper fuel. And Swedish motorists are flocking to a
southwestern town where price wars have made gas about 30 percent cheaper
than the national average of $5.66 a gallon.
While that price is enough to leave the average American gasping for air,
Swedish gas is still cheap in comparison with the Netherlands. There, a
gallon of premium costs $6.56.
Oil prices are about 50 percent higher than a year ago, and reached a new
intraday high of $68 a barrel Thursday on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
As the cost of oil has risen prices at the pump have gone up too, with
service station operators posting new figures each time the price per
barrel has changed.
Still, some Europeans grimace and bear it.
"We accept a lot," said Egil Otter of the Norwegian Automobile Association
about the high cost of driving, including premium gas prices at $6.46 a
gallon. "When costs go up for car use people don't drive less. They just
cut costs in other areas."
Even before the oil shock, pricey gas in Europe was a reality because of
high taxes used to fund government projects and encourage people to use
public transportation.
While Americans consider driving wherever and whenever they want a basic
right, Europeans traditionally have considered cars as only one way of
getting around. Subways, trams and buses are well maintained and dependable
in most major European cities, and some ? like London ? have introduced
inner-city driving fees to reduce congestion.
The Paris-based International Energy Agency says Europeans drive half the
miles each year that Americans do on average. And they make half the amount
of car trips that Americans do.
What's more, Europeans tend to drive more fuel-efficient cars. German
government studies show average fuel consumption of cars on German roads is
now about 27 miles a gallon compared to 25.8 miles in the early 1990s. No
such trend has been documented for U.S. cars, which instead have become
bigger, stronger and more gas-hungry over the past few years.
In Europe, added taxes and charges on new cars, road use and toll booths
compound the burden of driving. In Norway, for instance, a 100-percent tax
on new cars doubles what might otherwise be the sticker price.
Dutch gas, at $6.56 a gallon, is more than twice what Americans have to
pay. Nearly two-thirds of that, however, are taxes and duties. Strip away
the surcharges and it would cost about $2.47 a gallon.
German, French, Italian, Belgian, Portuguese Swedish and British drivers
pay nearly as much as the Dutch, again with taxes making up the bulk of the
burden.
At close to $4 a gallon ? Latvians, who pay the least within the 25-nation
European Union, still end up forking more than a third more at the pump
than the average American.
Compounding the pain are wages that are in most cases lower than those of
Americans. The prosperous Swedes, for instance, earn the equivalent of
about $36,000 a year, which is still several thousand dollars short of what
Americans take home on average.
On the lower end of the scale is Hungary, where gas at $5.28 a gallon takes
a painful chunk out of the average yearly paycheck of $11,440.
So Europe's drivers improvise.
While tough customs enforcement has cut down on gas smuggling from Ukraine
and Romania to Hungary, Hungarians near those countries regularly drive
over the borders to fill up with cheaper petrol there ? as do Germans in
Poland and Poles in Ukraine.
"I go about three times a month," said Berlin taxi driver Roman Grasse, of
his regular 60-mile cross-border trips to Polish pumps.
Some Ukrainian drivers now are carrying canisters of gasoline in car
trunks ? alongside the traditional carton of cigarettes and bottle of
vodka ? for resale in Poland.
German police have started pulling over diesel-burning cars to ensure they
are not powered by home-heating fuel ? essentially the same substance but
taxed at a much lower rate and colored so the two can be told apart.
In southwestern Sweden, the town of Trollhattan, where Saabs are made, has
become even more of a draw to car owners because a price war among service
stations has driven gas prices more than 30 percent below the average.
"The only bad (thing) is that there can be a line of 30-40 cars," motorist
Stig Andreasson told the daily Expressen. "And once you get to the pump,
they may be out of gas."
But things get even tougher elsewhere in the world.
In Haiti, the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, most people
survive on less than $1 a day ? about the price of a quarter of a gallon of
gas in the Caribbean nation, with taxes accounting for about a third of the
cost.
"If gas stays so high, I'll never have the money to get married and have
kids," said Jean-Louis Pierre, 25. He crams as many passengers as possible
into his colorful "tap-tap" ? a pickup truck serving as a taxi ? each day
to eke out a living.
In Turkey, gasoline costs $7.50 a gallon, but the average wage is only
about $4,500 a year, and many drivers appear to be skirting the law to top
up. A parliamentary investigating commission last month estimated that $8
billion has been lost in tax revenues because of oil smuggling over the
past two years.
Much of that smuggling is from neighboring Iraq.
___
On Fri, 26 Aug 2005 16:13:48 -0400, Brice Yokem <byokem@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>For the last 5+ years, I've been riding my motorcycle to/from work
>almost year round.
>
>--------------------
>
>Chris -
>
>I am amazed you managed to go 5 years and have not gotten the bike
>stolen in the DC area.
>
>* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
>* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *
* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *
.
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