I am sick to death of hearing all this crap about needing to drill, drill, drill to put more oil on the market which supposedly will lower prices (it won't). So, now America seems to think oh yes, DRILL, DRILL NOW! Except it won't help them, not one bit. But there is one thing, one thing RIGHT now that we could all do which would add 50 million barrels of oil to our supplies each day.
Slow the Fricken hell DOWN! Yes, DRIVE 55 miles an hour! Wow, how novel, easy and immediate. Why, dear lord, why isn't our party, our leaders, our candidates shouting this from high and low?
We need to regain this drill argument, and we can, if we can offer an immediate solution, a solution that won't cost anything, will save everyone money, save lives and will result in more oil each day.
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Here is the "skinny" on driving slower:
Every 10 mph faster reduces fuel economy by about 4 mpg, a figure that remains fairly constant regardless of vehicle size, Clark said. (It might seem that a larger vehicle, with more aerodynamic drag, would see more of an impact. But larger vehicles also tend to have larger, more powerful engines that can more easily cope with the added load.)
That's where that 54 cents a gallon estimate comes from. If a car gets 28 mpg at 65 mph, driving it at 75 would drop that to 24 mpg. Fuel costs over 100 miles, for example - estimated at $3.25 a gallon - would increase by $1.93, or the cost of an additional 0.6 gallons of gas. That would be like paying 54 cents a gallon more for each of the 3.6 gallons used at 65 mph. That per-gallon price difference remains constant over any distance.
Do we need the government to force this? NO, but we all should be doing this, and we should promote this with bumper stickers that promote this idea, something in CA that would be like:
Save our Coast from Drilling: Drive 55
Look, I think the framing on this issue is low hanging fruit, and a way for Americans to take action, on their own, and get immediate results. You will get better gas mileage, accidents will have a lower mortality rate and we will use less oil.
Those who continue to push for drilling are like people who give alcoholics more alcohol, that isn't going to solve our problem. What we all need to do is start to live differently, we need to stop our wasteful ways, and we need to keep what resources we have in tact in case, god forbid, there comes a day with no other choice.
Time to wake up and do something, SLOW THE HELL DOWN! And do it with a bumper sticker, and show America how change is what Obama is all about.