What Grinds My Gears
Well, you humans will probably call it petrol, but whatever you call it - the costs have been going up. Still, I get by on about $50/week petrol which isn't too bad. My driver, he spends more than that on his food and can't run nearly as fast as I can go. I max out at about 170kph, he probably is closer to 17kph!
Performance aside, petrol price at nearly $1.48/litre is the highest it's ever been here in NZ and is apparently hitting peoples pockets hard. At $1.48/litre I get about 34 litres for $50. If the price was $1.10/litre the same 34 litres would cost about $37. A whole $13 less!! Pfff, I've heard what my driver earns and $13/week isn't that much in the scheme of things. It does however, make him happy he doesn't have a big petrol guzzling phalic symbol for transport, as they're feeling the pinch twice as much as he is. Suckers, serves them right.
Maybe the Land Transport NZ should do some advertising to remind people and get them thinking about how to conserve petrol. NZers will happily jump in their cars by themselves and go where they want when they want. It's nice to be able to do that, but maybe that has to change. Maybe now there is a new reason to. The get in your car and drive culture is easy, it requires less planning and foresight and less compromising with others. Much like cellphone culture now, you don't have to plan anything when you leave the house 'cause you know you can organise a meeting place later for example. Are humans losing important organisational skills as a result? Does it matter since they'll always have cellphones from now on? A little off track there, but what I'm saying is that with a little planning, creative thinking and flexibility, car usage could reduce dramatically, and humans will develop some usefull life skills along the way.
Adverts could also point out that driving habits have an influence on petrol consumption. Anytime you change your speed, you use more petrol. If you accelerate hard (if that's what makes you hard) you'll feel it in your pocket (or purse). Smooth slow take offs are cheaper. Same for deceleration - if you are braking, you are throwing away kinetic energy that you've built up by accelerating before. If you let road friction slow you down slower, by letting your foot off the gas earlier, you'll save $$$. Another one is following distance - we all know the 2sec rule for it's safety implications, but a by-product of not driving like you're want to be in the back seat of the car in front is you've got a nice buffer in front of you. This means that when the car in front slows down and speeds up constantly, you don't always have to.
Anyway, I wrote this a few months ago and never published it so the prices are somewhat out-of-date, but the concepts aren't.
Fred.
Performance aside, petrol price at nearly $1.48/litre is the highest it's ever been here in NZ and is apparently hitting peoples pockets hard. At $1.48/litre I get about 34 litres for $50. If the price was $1.10/litre the same 34 litres would cost about $37. A whole $13 less!! Pfff, I've heard what my driver earns and $13/week isn't that much in the scheme of things. It does however, make him happy he doesn't have a big petrol guzzling phalic symbol for transport, as they're feeling the pinch twice as much as he is. Suckers, serves them right.
Maybe the Land Transport NZ should do some advertising to remind people and get them thinking about how to conserve petrol. NZers will happily jump in their cars by themselves and go where they want when they want. It's nice to be able to do that, but maybe that has to change. Maybe now there is a new reason to. The get in your car and drive culture is easy, it requires less planning and foresight and less compromising with others. Much like cellphone culture now, you don't have to plan anything when you leave the house 'cause you know you can organise a meeting place later for example. Are humans losing important organisational skills as a result? Does it matter since they'll always have cellphones from now on? A little off track there, but what I'm saying is that with a little planning, creative thinking and flexibility, car usage could reduce dramatically, and humans will develop some usefull life skills along the way.
Adverts could also point out that driving habits have an influence on petrol consumption. Anytime you change your speed, you use more petrol. If you accelerate hard (if that's what makes you hard) you'll feel it in your pocket (or purse). Smooth slow take offs are cheaper. Same for deceleration - if you are braking, you are throwing away kinetic energy that you've built up by accelerating before. If you let road friction slow you down slower, by letting your foot off the gas earlier, you'll save $$$. Another one is following distance - we all know the 2sec rule for it's safety implications, but a by-product of not driving like you're want to be in the back seat of the car in front is you've got a nice buffer in front of you. This means that when the car in front slows down and speeds up constantly, you don't always have to.
Anyway, I wrote this a few months ago and never published it so the prices are somewhat out-of-date, but the concepts aren't.
Fred.
posted by SAS at
5:06 pm
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