North American gasoline

[mm123521]

Douggie
Bigger is absolutly safer, if you are in the dumpster truck, you are much safer than in a Mini couper.

You wanna see bad driving, come on up to the Chicago area! Speed limit is 55 on the tollway I drive, but your not going 80 in the fast lane, your gonna get run over!!! If you dont hold less than 3 car lengths, some jerk is gonna cut in front of you!! You should see the idiots weave from one lane to another at 85 and 90 MPH -- fools! People pass cops at 75 MPH and dont get pulled over. (I think Mad Max passed me yesterday!)
Then there are the people fooling with their cell phones in this environment. I saw someone reading and sorting papers while driving at 70MPH last month.

Doby, how do you like your Smart Car? Thats a M.B.??


Mark

[Doby]

So we are all going to be driving Dumpsters at 80 Mph

[mm123521]

Yah, I'am gonna get an M1A1 tank! I wonder if it will go 80?

[Jeepers]

[QUOTE=Flying Scotsman;310112 I do not buy into this bigger than you safety response, as that makes for aggresive driving by rather bad drivers in the first place

Douggie[/QUOTE]


I showed my wife your response, who was a paramedic for a number of years her response was " work the streets for awhile and you will learn what size cars/ trucks you will fair better in."

I also have to disagree with your statement, I have a CDL license, and driving a large vehicle actually made me more alert and cautious, knowing that I had the ability to flatten small cars with ease.

However there is the exception to some people, my friend lost his CDL license because he ran 3 cars off the road. lucky no one was hurt.

[Jeepers]

Hey, I had a couple of 12 foot copper pipes hanging out of my Smart Car...now that was funny.

here if you get stopped by the police, your gonna get a fine.

[Flying Scotsman]

I showed my wife your response, who was a paramedic for a number of years her response was " work the streets for awhile and you will learn what size cars/ trucks you will fair better in."

I also have to disagree with your statement, I have a CDL license, and driving a large vehicle actually made me more alert and cautious, knowing that I had the ability to flatten small cars with ease.

However there is the exception to some people, my friend lost his CDL license because he ran 3 cars off the road. lucky no one was hurt.

I drove armoured cars or cash in transit vehicles for 4 years and yes most professional drivers of large vehicles are very good drivers, it is the twits texting etc. on their daily commute that worry me. I will take on any SUV or truck on any road under controlled conditions in my car, as in the worst conditrions..snow etc. they are the first in the ditch.

Douggie

[Simon.O.]

I try to shy away from these political threads but I'll throw in a few things this time.

I have done a few comparative price checks and you guys in the USA are still paying less for petrol than many other Countries including me in NZ. That's life and I am happy with it.

I'll say this about driving a heavy vehicle, It makes you very aware of what a large truck can do to a small car. A 15ton fire engine will trash almost anything it hits and this makes us learn to drive according to the conditions that we see.

For those that drive a big pickup, or as is commonly called a SUV, all I can say is take a little care and think of the smaller cars and do try not to squash them.

Now for the real kicker Afghanistan !!
I read a lot of history books and over the last few years one common theme and location pops up, Kandahar !!
It has never been tamed, not by Genghis Khan, the Indian Moghuls, the Persians, the Turks or even the Soviets. There is no way the US will do it.
I'm sorry if this sounds harsh but there is no way it will happen !!

I do not wish to upset anyone reading this thread but felt the need to add to a stimulating discussion.

[NativePaul]

If it goes one level further, you guessed it...THREE HUNDRED and THIRTY MILLION PEOPLE-the entire population of the United States of America and Canada !!!!

either that or the same 10 people get 33million spam E-mails, hope I'm not one of them.

Rising oil prices is a trend thats set to continue in my opinion and if you don't like the price of fueloil all you can do about it is to use less of it, I'm paying £6.07/gallon or $8.43usd/USgallon for petrol here in England because the government quite rightly tax the crap out of it to encourage us to be more frugal with it. Big American pickups are pretty rare over here nobody sells them, they have to be individually imported and they are pure status symbols due to the running cost (I've never seen one that wasn't bright and shiny or had anything in the back). Most folks that need to haul a load use a van over here, a LWB transit will fit WAY more in than the bigest pickup and the 2.5L turbodiesel will average about 30mpg, I do know a couple of people that need pickups, earning there wage as fencing contractors they need off-road capabilities and load carrying ability so nothing else will do, but they went eastern, one with an old Subrau that and one with a Toyota Hilux which are in the both in the low 30s

I'm sure some will think that I'm a tree hugging hippie for liking our high taxes on fueloil and that isn't really the case, I do have a health respect for the environment but it isn't about pollution for me, but the quality of life for our species as it continues through the generations, oil is a finite resource and we're burning it up for fuel which is pretty despicable considering how many plastics use it in their manufacture. I'd rather we burned coal (the dirtiest of all power technologies) to power electric cars and save the oil so my grandchildren could have plastics and my great great great etc grandchildren could have recycled plastics than live the easy life now then have my kids use up the last of the oil and be "up pooh river without a stick"! But unfortunately the infrastructure is not quite there yet, so while I'm sure I'll be driving an electric car in 20 years time (hopefully sooner) I am not yet and until then I will continue to drive small cars with sub 2 liter engines that get decent MPG.

Nissen Leaf (totaly electric) wont make the 70 mile round trip.
Chevy Volt would be good, but you cant buy one yet and they are too expensive @ $40,000

the good news here is that between now and 2014 all the European car companies will be releasing at least 1 full electric or plug in hybrid.

I feel that I need a big heavy pickup truck for safety.
With all the big SUV's on the road, if you get hit by one and you are driving something small, then your gonna get hurt!
If the big SUV's were off the road, I would get something smaller.

That's quite a catch 22 isn't it, I'm currently driving a Mazda MX5/Eunos/Miata and when I pull up alongside big trucks and see the tops of their tires towering above my head or worse cant see the tops of their tires at all, I do feel a little intimidated, but one generation has to make the move smaller, its just how long it will be till there is one with big enough balls. Well done to Doby for making the move early, you must have balls of steel, Chuck Norris has nothing on you.

Now for the real kicker Afghanistan !!
I read a lot of history books and over the last few years one common theme and location pops up, Kandahar !!
It has never been tamed, not by Genghis Khan, the Indian Moghuls, the Persians, the Turks or even the Soviets. There is no way the US will do it.
I'm sorry if this sounds harsh but there is no way it will happen !!

I couldn't agree more, I was fully behind both Iraq wars whether legal or not, but Afghanistan is futile, pointless and immoral, if the might of the neighboring USSR at their peak couldn't do it what hope do we have doing it from thousands of miles away? Here in the UK we've been fighting terrorists on home soil for more than 40 years in the form of the IRA and recently since the last IRA ceasefire, various splinter factions like "the real IRA", the whole Afghanistan war was just a kneejerk reaction to 9/11 and 7/7 we've proven here that you cant fight terrorism with an army, best case scenario you can raid every terrorists house and shoot them all, putting an end to it all, but what about the weapons buried in the field down the road? Someones brother (who wasn't a terrorist) is going to be mighty upset about his dead brother and may raid that cache, low and behold you've made yourself another terrorist. Over here the terrorists were the ones with the bombs and RPGs, we wouldn't airstrike terrorist lairs here for fear of collateral damage and breeding more terrorism, we would send in an infantry squad to raid the building instead and would only use stun grenades and rifles to do so as even within that building not everyone is necessarily a terrorist, but on foreign soil we just flatten it and hope next door doesn't fall down too. It makes me ashamed to be English, we should pull out now.

[Punisher 67]

Yes Paul thats why I use and love my little Saturn 1.9 liter peanut as my daily driver . In fact during the spring , summer and fall months I ride my mountain bike to and from work its only 4.25km and I really enjoy the ride

But I make no apologies for owning a 8200 pound dually Dodge diesel either .

As unrealistic as this sounds wouldn't it be nice if we didn't have to rely on the middle east for our oil .

[larryrose11]

I cant believe that I have to say this, especially to a group of people tha are crazy about powerfull electric drivetrain.

10 yrs ago, a 'fast' electir boat could actually make it up on plane!!
And now? Electric power dominates all but a few places in the world of RC.
Dont you smell something here?

YOu ALL could simply convert a vehicle to electric power. Perhaps a car might be too expensive, but certainly a motorcycle.
I'm in the process of making a custom bike, based upon a Suzuki Hayabusa. It wont meet all my needs, but that's fine.
It will go like stink, (68 HP, 110 ft-lb, good to 8000 RPM) and look really cool along the way. When I charge it, (for about $.60 that will take me 50 miles spiried driving), that money stays in our economy.

As mentioned earlier in this post, Oil is a global commodity. Right now, or soon enough, the world oil production will peak.
That means that the cheap oil, what we have now, will be over, and the prices will continue to rise.
Aside, I have all my retirement investments in oil, and Im making a killing. The prices, in the long run, will only go 1 way.

What you can do RIGHT NOW:
If you must drive, lean the ways of the Hyper-Miler.
Drive gently to get better fuel economy. Every time you get on the brakes, you wast the gas you just spent gettin up to speed. Coast more.
If your real a nut job, like me, you can shut off your engine while coasting. Just gently start the engine with he clutch to get it running.
By doing this, I get over 42 MPG tank average, in a car that is rated @ 28 MPG combined. You can too, and I have $0.00 up front investment. No famcy hybrid anything.

Remember, every bit of fuel you use, either in the form of driving, or buying food that has to be imported from wherever, ultimately drive up the price of oil.
Do you really 'need' to drive everywhere? no, you don't. Get on your dam bicycle or walk to do your local shopping.

For those that need to drive a truck, get a diesel, convert it to run on veg oil. I have lots of friends that do it. One has set up a business around it.

For those of you that refuse to change, for whatever reason, just STFU, I dont want to hear yer bittchen.

Cheaper crack is not the answer.
So, you can either complain, or take control of your own future.
I choose the latter.

Douggie
Bigger is absolutely safer, if you are in the dumpster truck, you are much safer than in a Mini couper.

you may be safer in a bigger vehicle, but you ability to stop / avoid an accident is greatly diminished. The safest option is to not get into an accident to begin with.

[Punisher 67]

I have a 20hp 48volt DC motor in my garage and thats a project that I would like to tackle soon also . would like to find a low profile 650cc or 750cc motorbike frame .

I built a electric bike in the 90's it was just a blast to drive , top speed was 40km and with a range of 12km per charge or enough to get me to work and back . was powered by a Astro flight cobalt 60 11T and 42 DR nicads . it had its own watercooling and a custom built radiator

[larryrose11]

Punisher 67.
Look here, great resource.

http://www.elmoto.net/content.php

[Punisher 67]

Awesome my friend thank you for that link

[Brushless55]

Yes Paul thats why I use and love my little Saturn 1.9 liter peanut as my daily driver . In fact during the spring , summer and fall months I ride my mountain bike to and from work its only 4.25km and I really enjoy the ride

But I make no apologies for owning a 8200 pound dually Dodge diesel either .

As unrealistic as this sounds wouldn't it be nice if we didn't have to rely on the middle east for our oil .

The fact is we do not have to rely on oil from outside the US like they make us believe
we have more oil than we know what to do with that is still underground
ask me how I know and I won't say much other than I come from a BIG farm in North Eastern Colorado
and the reason I have been able to buy some sweet RC in the past year along with my BMW
With some of my research in the past 8 months, I'm finding that America has a huge supply of oil under our feet that will last a very very long time...
In Weld County they are drilling like mad
I really don't understand though why our government chooses not to drill more for our own oil in our own Country like we could to be dependent on our own

[m4a1usr]

I really don't understand though why our government chooses not to drill more for our own oil in our own Country like we could to be dependent on our own

I have wondered that myself over the years as the topic of importing oil gets tossed around over the decades (if any of you are old enough to remember the 70's!) and I think I finally found the answer. We havent seen gas rationing in quite a awhile (unless its related to localized shortages and weather havoc) and we do indeed have vast amounts of oil untapped in North America (USA and Canada) not to mention what lies beneath the artic (remember Russia wants those "unclaimed" reserves too!) so could the lesson be that we (USA FED) actually decided to "burn up" the world reserves that are readilly available, knowing that our own domestic reserves will carry us thru the next war/ turmoil/ economic unbalance should that one day come (and it will) when oil is at $200 or $300 a barrel?

After all. It is a strategic reserve. No matter how you use it, synthetics can do some of the same processes and biologics can come into play on certain levels. But neither can or will ever play such a role in transportation untill get weened off petro chemicals.

And follow me for just another second of dilerium here. My reasoning, while not factually based comes from the shear simplistic logic. Money can be and is only worth the paper its printed on. One day it pays your bills. A large enough problem comes along and the next day its reduced to pigment on some parchment. Good enough to light tonights dinner fire!

So we toss tons and tons of it at the rest of the world. After all. Its only tangeable to those who need it to spend on the personal level. Our Governemts use lines of credit in dollar amounts for the bills. We dont ship containers of cash to pay our debts. Those get dished out at the end of transactions. Do you guys see where I'm going? Let the rest of the world hold on to what we can claim to pay. In the end the world changes the new monetary system, what ever that is, and whats in the bank gets converted due to the economic circumstances. Devalued.

The point is in the end when all of the free market oil reserves are gone or close, we will have our oil. Why? Because we paid out worthless money, didnt cash in on our deposits and waited to be the last guy standing or something approximate.

Might sound like the ramblings of a lunatic. But just think about it for a second. Okay, maybe half a second.

John