If gas went up to $20/gallon -- what would you do? What would really happen?
 

Here's what I think...

People would move closer to work, take the bus, ride a bike, walk...

Less pollution...

Suburbia would lose value.

???

That's it?

People would drive cars powered by alternative fuels.

Ok maybe $20 is too cheap... how much would gas need to cost before trucking food would become prohibitive? Seems like it would need to be very high INDEED.

this country would shut down.

then people would realize that the US has so much oil reserves that we dont NEED iraq, and that the oil companies and govt are just raping the consumer because they can.

then thered be senate hearings, blame thrown around, etc.

then gas would go back down.

then the oil companies would go out enron style.

and the process starts over again.

Weve had some horrible gas prices here in California since Sept 11th.

People would drive cars powered by alternative fuels.


By the way, trucks run on Diesel, not gas.

I think I have to change my mind. You know even if gas was $20/gallon -- I don't really think much would change.

McDonalds would close down the Drive-Through window?!

Walk?

:eek7 .....:thumbsup .....:1orglaugh

Ok sorry I'm ignorant -- how do you produce Diesel? I've heard some cool shit about the new turbo Diesel VW's...

Here's some shit I found...
"Penn researchers have recently been awarded $1.8 million by the U.S. Army and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration to develop a coffee-can-sized fuel cell capable of generating power equivalent to 50 D-cell batteries. The military is particularly interested in diesel-run fuel cells because diesel?s low vapor pressure makes it less explosive and therefore safer; the Penn fuel cell also runs on the hydrocarbons toluene and n-decane. "

Cool article... http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/releas...gorte0901.html

Many vehicles already run on propane or natural gas

and soon many more will run on hydrogen too!

Only someone who lives in LA would say this. Move out of that stank hole, bro

that's true... trucks don't run on gas they run on diesel, which is nothing more than a few refinement steps less than it takes to make gasoline. However, it doesn't really matter since we don't buy barrels of gasoline or diesel, we buy barrels of crude which is then refined into the various fuels such as gasoline, diesel, heating oil, etc.... so what you're really asking is what would we do if oil went up $20 bucks a gallon. (remember, they buy in barrels, not gallons)....

yes, it would affect everything, the least devastating of which would be consumer transportation. Trucking and shipping costs would be astronomical, which in turn would pass the costs on to the end user. There's also several other things to consider besides just food.

ALL shipping would be affected. Trucks, ships, mail.... the works. It all runs on fuel.

Everything you have, came on a truck. Everything.
Your pants, your television, your computer, your breakfast, your car, satellite, stereo, lightbulbs, beer, toilet paper, picture frames, toothbrush.... all of it.

And guess who's going to pay for the increase in fuel.

You.

With every last damn thing you buy.

LOL I moved out of LA several months ago ;) Well if AMP is right -- then YES, Los Angeles would be a stank hole. It doesn't fucking rain there -- all the food is brought in by truck.

Here's what we'd do if gas prices went up to 20.00 a gallon.

We'd send troops in to Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and who ever else has oil in thier backyard.

Oil will never get that high.
Uncle Sam will see to it.

He will fight and kill to keep us happy.

Ok I did a little bit of research... A typical truck gets about 4-11mpg -- just based on a little google searching. Here are Diesel prices including tax.

U.S.
1.388
East Coast
1.374
New England
1.429
Central Atlantic
1.449
Lower Atlantic
1.337
Midwest
1.380
Gulf Coast
1.344
Rocky Mountain
1.419
West Coast
1.506
California
1.586

Now say a truck has to drive 600 miles -- do the math in my head here... At 6 mpg -- that's 100 gallons. Let's say Diesel is $1.50 -- that's ONLY $150! Divide that by how many thousands of oranges -- we're not talking about very much increase in the price of an orange if you double or triple the cost of Diesel fuel...

Looks to me like running out of oil is the least of our problems:

---

Jacques Giddens can't sell all his oranges because the orange cartel's quotas are converted into marketing orders by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and enforced by the Justice Department. There are, in fact, 109 Federal marketing orders in effect in 25 states for fruits, vegetables, nuts, and dairy products. In 1972, for example, growers left 14,000 tons of cherries to rot in orchards because of a Federal marketing order.

The trucking industry is also controlled by cartels. Brooks Jackson and Evans Witt describe how these cartels collude with the Interstate Commerce Commission:

The ICC tells truckers precisely what kinds of goods they can carry, precisely what highways they can use and what they can charge.

<snip>

The major trucking firms band together in "rate bureaus" that decide what to charge for hauling. These cartels, exempt from antitrust prosecution, then challenge any attempts to have lower rates approved by the ICC.

This keeps shipping prices higher than they could be.

An Agriculture Department study found that shipping rates for frozen fruits and vegetables dropped 18 per cent when the courts ruled those products exempt from ICC oversight. Another Agriculture study showed rates for dressed poultry plummeted 33 per cent when ICC regulation was lifted.4

The waste wrought by ICC regulations is enormous:

For example, a Department of Transportation study discovered that a big manufacturer of building materials in New Jersey ships three truckloads of goods a week from its main plant to Tampa, Florida. The trucks make the return trip empty.

This company has a subsidiary in southern Florida that sends three truckloads of goods a week to eastern Pennsylvania. But the subsidiary's trucks make the return trip south empty-because the ICC will not let a subsidiary's trucks carry goods for the parent company or vice versa.

The DOT study, which did not name the firm, concluded that this one company could save 360,000 miles of useless travel and 90,000 gallons of fuel a year just by running trucks in a circuit from New Jersey to Tampa to southern Florida to eastern Pennsylvania.5

According to a report co-authored by Robert Fellmeth and members of the Ralph Nader research staff, regulated truckers travel empty an estimated 30 per cent of their miles-three times the percentage for unregulated truckers. Empty trucks, ICC-mandated roundabout routes, and artificially high rates cost the American public tens of millions of gallons of fuel and billions of dollars every year.6

http://www.libertyhaven.com/regulati...iraciesin.html

congratulations. Welcome to the wonderful world of government controlled Interstate Commerce. Ain't it great? :glugglug

TAXI!!!!! LIMO!!!!!

by the way, there's a helluva lot more that you gotta pay for than just fuel if you're gonna operate a rig. There's licensing, fuel tax, road tax, (for every state mind you), equipment payments, maintenance, etc... did you know that if you blow a tire (there's at least 18 of them) which is a normal occurance when you turn 130,000 miles a year plus, that to get it replaced costs on average about $500 bucks.

so when you suggest that shipping costs are inflated, you might want to take into account all of the OTHER factors that go along with trucking.

and we haven't even touched office costs, employees, insurance, benefits, emergencies, medical screenings, etc... yet.

did you know that just to HIRE a driver and put him on the road costs about $5k... and sometimes a driver quits 2 days later. That money doesn't get refunded.

did you know that my last company I drove for had a 1 million dollar insurance policy on me and the rest of their 400 drivers?

My tractor alone cost $150,000.... that's not including the trailer or any of the fees that must be paid before it's operable. Sometimes newbie drivers go out and total these rigs in their first week. Along with the half million dollar load that was riding in the trailer.

God help you if you have a hazmat spill or a road fatality.....

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

the shipping rates are actually quite low considering all these things.

and you know who takes it in the ass?

the drivers.

A good driver with a couple years experience and decent company will make roughly .30 cents per mile. He's limited by the DOT as to how many hours he can legally log/drive, so it comes out to basically somewhere between $22k and $32k a year depending on how hard he runs.

That's a shitload of responsibility to only make an average of about $27k a year gross.

And if you have a wreck, or get a speeding ticket or two... these things damage you. 2 or 3 speeding tickets and you're no longer a driver. Even one preventable accident (there are no unpreventable accidents.... only preventable or acts of god when you're a pro driver).... you can pretty much kiss your career goodbye because no one will be able to insure you.

There is no separate license for pro drivers. If you lose your license for trucking, you lost your license to drive your car as well.

My only bitch about diesel is lack of diesel carrying stations. You learn pretty fast to memorize where every diesel pump within a 10 mile radius is.

People always gawk at me and say "Shit, you pay 1.60 a gallon". Yeah, but it costs me a 1.60 to go damn near 50 miles, how much does it cost your suv fag drivin ass to go 50 miles?

And diesel prices never fluctuate the way regular gas does. When every slapdick is paying 2.00 a gallon in the summer, Im still at a 1.60.

that's cheap man.... gas here has been $1.95+ for the low grade 87 octane crap ever since I moved here.