Christmas is only hours away now. Maybe Santa will leave one or two of the following things under the tree…
* Lower gas prices –
Unleaded regular is creeping back up to $3 per gallon and in many areas of the country is already higher than that. Given the flood of Fed funny money, it’s likely to sail back to the $4 and more we were paying at the peak of the last Petro Bubble, which preceded the collapse of the economy in 2008. If prices go back up to $4 (or more) again, the economy will be on its back – not just on its knees. There’s no turning off the printing presses at this point but the government could push gas prices back to $2 per gallon – possibly, below the $2 threshold – by declaring a Motor Fuels Tax Holiday. Each gallon of gas carries a 50-80 cent tax burden. Get rid of these punitive and regressive taxes and the burden on American motorists – on everyone, because fuel costs permeate the economy – would go a long way toward counter-acting the venom of Bernanke’s “qualitative easing.” But how will we fund roads and so on? By canceling the Afghan Adventure and bringing “the troops” back home. The billions saved could bring gas prices back to $1.50 or less per gallon. We could probably have free gas. Which would beat the snot out of “fightin’ fer freedom” (does anyone still buy that stuff?) meatgrinder and money-sucker that is our “defense” industry.
* More diesels –
And fewer $40,000 hybrids that barely outdo the mileage of an ’80s-era Plymouth Champ. Diesels, unlike hybrids, work – if “working” means they deliver very high gas mileage without a very high price tag. Gas-electric hybrids and electric cars are impressive as technology but crap as consumer products – if the point of the exercise is to produce economical transportation. If you have to pay $30,000 or $40,000 (or even $25,000) to get 35 or 40 MPGs then MPGs don’t really matter since whatever you “save” in fuel costs is negated by the cost of the car itself. But diesel engines can deliver 60 MPG in a subcompact car that costs less than $15,000. Just not here. They have such cars in Europe. Santa needs to bring a few of them to us. But first, he’ll need to put some coal in the stockings of the government bureaucrats who have made the American car market unfriendly for diesel vehicles by imposing one regulatory obstacle and expense after the next. It’s not that diesels are “dirty” – the Europeans are just as obsessed with saving the planet as we are. It’s simply that our bureaucrats and politicians aren’t as smart as those in Europe.
Santa could give them an IQ pill, too.
* A revised traffic code –
It took less than 20 years to realize that Prohibition was a mistake – and to repeal the law. Most of us know that speed enforcement is bunk, too – but it’s being enforced as aggressively as ever. Instead of going after tailgaters, people who drive erratically – or too slowly, creating massive traffic jams and road hazards – the fixation on “speeding” shows no signs of ever being cured by a dose of reason. Most highway speed limits are still below what they were in the 1960s – despite a half-century’s improvement in car design. There are “radar traps” in almost every town and county in the land – cynically set up to catch motorists who failed to drive at an excruciatingly slow speed set deliberately low for precisely that reason. If Santa had to live under such a regime, he’d never get all his presents delivered in time – or he’d lose his license after having received too many “points” for “speeding.”
* An “off” button for seat belt buzzers –
Haven’t we got enough stress in our lives already? Can’t we at least drive our car down to the mailbox without being assaulted by an ear-splitting “buckle-up” buzzer? Almost every new car comes with one and there’s no button to turn it off. You can do it yourself by locating the infernal machine, which is tucked up under the dash someplace – and driving a screwdriver through its evil electronic heart. But you shouldn’t have to do that. There’s no law (yet) that new cars must be sold with seat belt buzzers that can’t be turned off. Most of the car companies relented on Daytime Running Lamps and now provide Off switches for those annoyances.
Please, Santa, how about a switch to shut down the seat belt harpie?
In the news yesterday they were trying to take a collection of money for the three kids of a lady that got into an accident a couple of days ago and she did not have her seat belt on and was thrown out of the car and killed. Does anyone here want to contribute to her kids? I would think that you would take care of your own.
“I would think that you would take care of your own.”
What does this mean?
One of our own fellow Americans, drivers, car owners?
One of your own that does not wear seat belts. You push for us not to have to wear them then I would think you would help the other families that lost their non wearing seat belt father or mother.
I always wear my seat belt!
I don’t “push” for anything. That’s what you constantly miss. You and your fellow power-lusters and authoritarian busybodies. I support free choice. If you want to buckle up, fine. Do so. But don’t tell me to buckle up. That decision is no more your business than it is my business to tell you what to do. Unfortunately, America is becoming a Euro-style nation of low-rent busybodies who get off imposing their will on other people, at ticket or gunpoint.
Millions of Americans are now Maggots (or Clovers) who don’t get that they have no moral right to use force to impose their will or beliefs on other people for any reason except self-defense. From using the power of government to steal from people to subjecting them to hassles from cops “for their own good,” these assholes acknowledge no limit to their thuggery by proxy. They don’t have the balls to physically assault other people to take their money or make them do what they want them to do – so they vote for laws to get it done by someone else.
Such people make me sick.
I know your question is directed at Eric.
Thought I would mention this though.
I’m not sure if there is a crack, but I am sure there is a way to bypass the electronic switch in your seat belt.
Hey, Eric, I can’t see any other comments, so forgive me, if I am writing something redundant. Are you sure there’s no “crack”, so to speak, to turn off the seatbelt warning on your vehicle? I have no new vehicles, but a mechanic friend talked about this. I imagine each model would have a different sequence of switch pushes or whatever.