I remember filling up my 95 escort for $12. That was eight years ago, back when I could find gas for 99 cents per gallon. How times have changed! I told my wife that I bet gas here in Utah will hit $4.00 before the years is out, and I wouldn't be suprised if it hit that before summer is over. And what are the chances of prices going down significantly? As long as OPEC keeps a strangle hold on petroleum, there's not much of an incentive to bring prices down. I laughed out loud when Hillary Clinton promised to get tough on OPEC, saying she would use anti-trust laws to bring the cartel to justice. Excuse me? This is probably the dumbest idea I've heard during this whole campaign! Do enormously wealthy oil shieks care one bit about our anti-trust laws? What are we going to do, slap them with a hefty fine? Please, Hillary, no one is buying your false populist rhetoric. Anyways, I digress.
I mentioned my old 95 escort because as my first car, it taught me a lot about my place in America's car culture. I could wring 40 miles to the gallon from that little car, and it reliably took me from place to place. That's what a vehicle is for, after all. It taught me that utility is more valuable than fashion, and economy is better than style. I guess that's not saying much, since the escort was in no way fashionable or stylish, but my point is that I learned at a young age what role the automobile should play in one's life. Though I have learned this, it appears that much of the US hasn't, judging from the legions of extravagant SUVs and trucks that clog our roads. Excursions and F-350s belch out thick, oily smoke as they shuttle their lone driver to and from the grocery store. Hummers and Suburbans soak up gallons of gasoline in an expensive display of conspicuous consumption. SUVs and trucks are the bane of our transportation system. Inefficient, oversized, and in many cases, outright dangerous, these behemoths represent several huge steps backward in transportation technology.