Don't Tread on Me
One of the many joys of car ownership is finding out that you have to pay hundreds of dollars and spend several hours on something you didn't even know was a problem. Case in point: at a routine servicing a couple of months ago, I found out that I needed new tires. (Buh-bye, $350.)
Being me (i.e., a semi-obsessive compulsive geek) I ran the numbers:
- Tires cost a little under a penny per mile.
- A $20/ton charge for CO2 emisisons would increase the cost of driving by...a little under a penny a mile. Of course, we couldn't possibly do that, because it would would ruin the economy!! </sarcasm>
- Buying low rolling-resistance tires can boost mileage by about 1.5% to 4.5%. (More here.) At the current price of gas, that means that low rolling resistance tires can save you somewhere between $33 and $99 per tire!!
The thing that ticked me off, though, was that it's well known that a tire's rolling resistance affects gas mileage. And I was willing to pay more for the the privilege of buying more fuel efficient tires. But the tire "experts" at two different stores had no idea what I was talking about. One even tried to convince me that the idea that rolling resistance mattered was a myth! (Sorry, Les Schwab, you wound up losing a customer.) The other tire guy, who was willing to humor me, said something to the effect that it only made like a half-a-mile per gallon difference.
Dude!! Gas is $3 a gallon. I'm buying tires that are supposed to last 60,000 miles. My infernal jalopy that I can't afford to replace gets just a hair over 20 mpg. So even if gas prices remain steady for the next 8 years or so, (ha!) half a mile a gallon saves me at least $200 bucks, not to mention a barrel and a half of oil.
At this point, with prices as high as they've been, I'd think that tire stores would leap at the chance to point out tires that can save fuel. But I'd be wrong. Apparently, business as usual means that everyone still assumes that gas is cheap. Time's they aren't a changin' yet.
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Mr. Livingstone, I Presume
Worth reading: a New York Times op-ed by London mayor Ken Livingstone on congestion pricing, one of our favorite topics.
As you may recall, in 2003 London started charging drivers a fee to enter the most congested part of the center city. The early results: congestion fell by 20 percent, climate-warming vehicle emissions fell by 15 percent, and 70,000 fewer cars per day entered the congested center city. Since then, the fee has been upped to £8 (about $16 US at today's exchange rates). But apparently, there's been little political backlash. In fact...
Before the [London] program began, polls showed that public opinion was divided almost exactly evenly. Since then, opinion has shifted to 2-to-1 in favor.
That's right: the more experience people had with congestion pricing, the more they liked it!
