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Opinion: Why are we not using our brains?
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fair67cp
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Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 189
Location: North West Maryland
Opinion: Why are we not using our brains?

I'm wondering if anybody feels like I do about the current fuel situation. I drive to work each day in rush hour traffic with several anticipated traffic backups every 3 or 4 miles for 12 miles of the trip. My strategy is that I know I am going to stop so once I get to a faster spot I usually don't go much faster than 55 to 65. Literally EVERYBODY else FLOORS whatever they are driving, and cuts in and out like mad and RACES so that they can get one or two spots ahead before they inevidently come to another stop ahead. This drives me crazy because:

A) They are making the traffic backup WORSE because slowing down would enable a greater volume of traffic through a limited two lane road and

B) They are sucking up a great deal of gas that we could save and use to STICK it back to the oil companies.

We all need to get together to have a national slow down or car pool day! The way these oil companies/investors play is that they hint at some potential problem, leak it to the news media the price of gas skyrockets and guess what??? When the news is good and the price of gas should thoretically plummit it goes down a cent or two!!! They have us by the gonads, but nobody cares!! We all drive like a bunch of idiots and I am upset because it affects the price I have to pay to live!!!

Mark in MD
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MET

Post Mon May 01, 2006 8:49 am 
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leadfoot25
Junior Member


Joined: 07 Apr 2006
Posts: 47
FUEL

I spend nearly $4,000.00 a month in Deisel.....don't get me started...I've dreamed about mounting a howitzer on the hood!!!LOL

Post Mon May 01, 2006 7:04 pm 
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RadLanesByRob
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Joined: 11 Mar 2006
Posts: 23
Location: Belle Vernon, Pa

I guess the Fed. Gov. tax on the oil companies (which we pay) and the Fed Gov. tax on the gas, and the state gov. tax on the gas isn't the bad part. Fed. tax on gas is 18 cents a gallon while my state Pa is around 38 cents plus whatever tax the feds charge the oil companies to ship and refine their product which we get in the end. The oil companies bring in 9 cents a gallon after all expenditures. Half of what the feds bring in.... who's boning who.. Don't tell me about the roads... Patch fix doesn't cost much, and that is all they use in my state..... my state kept the extra gas taxes last year to give the reps. a pay raise... take the damn tax off and help people out. Up in New York the gas tax is a percentage.. they're making out like bandits..

Lets not forget about the environmental regulations placed on gas where 18 different types of formulated gas are used in 18 regions. That doesn't help. They keep preaching global warming, but we only have maybe 2000 years of evidence on an Earth 56 million years old... cmon give me a break. Junk Science just using it to get their own way and force their way on others.

Lets use our heads and drill for our own oil in the gulf (which Cuba is letting China do soon anyways) and lets lift the ban on Anwarr and drill up there. Lets start mining oil shale and place that in the world bank so we don't have to worry about if some moron in Iran goes off the fringe.

Maybe just stop buying gas, yeah that'll show em.... then you can sell me your fairlane Smile

JMO
Rob

Post Mon May 01, 2006 9:19 pm 
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oldracer
Member


Joined: 13 Mar 2006
Posts: 77
Location: Wilhoit Az.

Let's not forget the obscene profits the oil companies are reporting recently,
in the BILLIONs!
"Old"

Post Mon May 01, 2006 9:37 pm 
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la8ron
Senior Member


Joined: 10 Mar 2006
Posts: 150
Location: New Zealand

Down in NZ the price of oil per barrel goes down so the oil companies put the price up, the exchange rate changes so they put the price up, then they realise that the cost of transporting the petrol to the stations has gone up and is eating into their profits so they put the price up again. One DJ on a local radio station reckons we should have a national drive off day (where you fill your car up and drive off without paying). As for the state of the roads (glorified goat tracks) and the tax the government is taking on the petrol (subpossidly for roading projects ) I wont even start on those theiving mongrels.
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66 hardtop downunder

Post Tue May 02, 2006 1:11 am 
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odd ball
Senior Member


Joined: 13 Mar 2006
Posts: 100
Location: San Francisco, CA

yeah, im glad i decided to pimp my small block and give up on those stroked big block dreams....
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69 Fairlane 500, 351w, 2200 stall C-4, 9" with 3.50 and trac-lock

Post Tue May 02, 2006 1:01 pm 
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Rylic
Senior Member


Joined: 18 Mar 2006
Posts: 240
Location: Jackson, TN

They can take away your license if you drive off here without paying.
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1967 Fairlane 500, 302 V8, Toploader transmission. Maybe I'll eventually get it on the road.

Post Tue May 02, 2006 8:37 pm 
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fair67cp
Moderator


Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 189
Location: North West Maryland

The other thing that makes me believe this is all a setup is this: The prices for GASOLINE go up because they have to add Gasahol to replace the PET stuff right?! Okay I can buy that as an argument, but tell me why then does Diesel fuel that doesn't have this additive go up an equal amount? In the meantime I see that Kerosene is staying at around $250.00 a gallon. If somebody found a way for a vehicle to use that, I bet it would soon be the same price as the rest!

The thing is there are ways of fighting back, by driving slower, car pooling and conserving our trips to different places. I don't see anybody stepping up to do any of this though and that seems so un-American to me.

Instead of an immigration day let's have a day where everybody fights back against the gas prices by doing what little they can. I bet there would be such a difference it would send a message to the oil companies and snap them out of it (at least until everyone relaxes and they do it again)!
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Post Wed May 03, 2006 6:51 am 
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leadfoot25
Junior Member


Joined: 07 Apr 2006
Posts: 47
doing what you can

one flaw though, you can't get any group of anybody's to stick with it, if you say ...boycot one gasoline brand forcing them to drop their prices, before they dropped it to a reasonable price, people would flock back to the station if they could save a couple cents, defeating the whole thing, same with driving slower, car-pooling etc..., not trying to be a naysayer, I beleive we need to do something, such as find an alternative source for automotive power that we can self create without the big corporations from having their way, I'm currently working on an engine that runs on dirt, but so far I've burried 3 cars and 1 bike and a pair of roller skates with no luck......????

Post Wed May 03, 2006 12:48 pm 
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RadLanesByRob
Junior Member


Joined: 11 Mar 2006
Posts: 23
Location: Belle Vernon, Pa

Why the heck are you guys helping those big oil companies by running your old technology (fairlanes) on the road.. you guys are so UnAmerican... You should sell them and all buy toyota prius's or those honda hybrids.. I agree, you should all get rid of those gas guzzling old motors and buy something that runs on electricity..
I'm gonna boycott Bill Gates and Microsoft too because of their obscene profits... how bout you guys jump in and sell your computers.. talking on this forum is helping them out... lets boycott them.


Prices go up because of unsettlement in the Middle East and other contries beings as we import most of our oil. Beings as we can't drill our own in the Gulf (but Cuba will let China drill in the Gulf) and we can't drill our own in Anwarr cause of the caribu... which seem to find homes next to the warm pipe line.

Yea, so their making big profits... welcome to capitalism.. you want communism? We can tell the oil companies what to sell their product for, then what happens? People start waiting in lines like the 70's.
What if we tax them? Well they push that tax on the price of gas.

How bout we take all the regulations off of them and let them get their own oil so the world bank doesn't decide the price of a barrel based on if some arab has a bad day... We got enough oil shale and oil in Alaska to pretty much dwindle our dependence on middle east oil.

I can't believe you guys aren't up in arms about the fed. gov. making double what the oil companies make, and them political scabs hiding their profit and tell the sheeple that the oil companies are gouging them.

Rob

When the price of oil didn't go up for 20 or so years, and inflation rose.. were you guys out there marching for the oil companies that were laying off workers? and capping off oil fields.. don't tell me you dont' remember that... it only works one way tho

Post Wed May 03, 2006 7:24 pm 
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mygirls63
Senior Member


Joined: 09 Mar 2006
Posts: 416
Location: Kansas
Think about this...

Price of oil goes up 50 cents to a dollar a barrel...before it is pumped out of the ground...later that day gas goes up 10 cents a gallon. How many gallons of gas do you get out of a barrel of oil, not counting diesel, jet fuel, kerosene & asphalt. All these products go up by 10 cents that day. Thats more profit made across the board than the rise in crude oil purchased. The cost of refining doesn't increase any more than the initial rise in the input cost (crude oil).
Oil companys have alot to do with this, but the futures traders are a big problem here to. They hear an arab has glow in the dark big boom silly putty & they panic running up the cost of crude & gas futures. Where else but America can you buy & sell a product that hasn't been pumped yet, shipped, or refined, yet make a profit on it & never touch it? The wholesalers & end users have no choice in the matter.
Another thing to consider... the huge profits made by these oil barons ARE NOT being reinvested into more refining capacity (which is #1 reason stated by Mr. Oil Baron as to the high cost of gas being high demand, not enough refining capacity).
We have half the number of refineries today than 25 years ago. Thank you Mr. Hybrid driving, non DDT using, bunny kissing, tree hugging, non meat eater. I am not anti enviroment here, but lets be reasonable here!!
We need to get the futures traders out of it and get the oil companys to reinvest in refinery capacity & yes Alaska oil development. Oh and where can I get some powdered water mix?
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Scott
1963 Fairlane Mini tub 10pt cage New 408" C4 Canfield 195CC heads Comp solid roller Victor Jr. 9" w/4.11? gears Moser spool & 35 spline axles. www.marksullense85carburetors.com

Post Wed May 03, 2006 10:00 pm 
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SD44
Senior Member


Joined: 09 Mar 2006
Posts: 562
Location: Mississippi

i have an uncle who has worked for hunt oil company in tuscaloosa, alabama for over 30 years, he's pretty high in management now. he said it's a freakin' joke that diesel is higher than regular unleaded, he said there isn't half the refining to make diesel as it is gasoline.

my dad worked on a tanker in the early 70's when we had that "fuel shortage" and he said they would sit off the coast of baytown texas for 2 or 3 weeks at a time with the tankers because all of the refineries were full and they didn't have anywhere empty to unload.

some of you probably saw this, they've done some research on running a second pipeline out of alaska the past couple years. they said that they only needed 2,000 acres, that it won't destroy any of the wildlife and won't be noticable unless you're in that area, and it would lower gasoline around 75 cents a gallon. but the environmentalist continually get it blocked. yeah that's right, let's save a few trees but destroy our economy instead. good trade-off.
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Post Wed May 03, 2006 11:08 pm 
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la8ron
Senior Member


Joined: 10 Mar 2006
Posts: 150
Location: New Zealand

The automobile association in New Zealand released a statement a few weeks ago saying that if the price of gas goes up at the pump by 5 cents, the government makes $29,000,000 in GST (Goods and Services Tax ), the minister for transport tried to say this was a load of rubbish, so the oil companies showed some of their accounts to prove it to be true. This is dispite the fact that sales had fallen in months shown compared to the previous year. I saw an item on the news last week that showed what countries used in oil requirements, America was in the top spot with something like 500,000,000 barrels of oil per year, next was China with 140,000,000 barrels per year and their demand is going to increase, that is why they have big supply contracts with countries like Iran. So America really needs to be looking to use its own resources rather than trying to be a good citizen of the world and prop up some of these middle eastern economies, then the price of oil would more than likely come down as there would be a bigger supply than there would be a demand for it.
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66 hardtop downunder

Post Wed May 03, 2006 11:39 pm 
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fair67cp
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Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 189
Location: North West Maryland

See what I started? LOL ... My original point to this post was not so much what the oil companys and technology and government has given us to work with here, it was what we alone as individuals can do to fight back.

I get a kick out of reading how the Fairlane is old technology and we should't be driving them. This is NOT my message. I did research about a year ago because I was looking to buy a new mid-size car. I made a list of vehicles foreign and domestic, their weight, horsepower, and fuel efficiency and just for kicks I wrote down the numbers for my Fairlane. For being 40 year old technology I was surprised at how competitive the Fairlane was compared to all the new "choices" we are being provided. I think it is sad that after all this time nobody has really addressed the issue concerning fuel efficiency (albeit there is the hybrid whose increased cost is an issue to me).

I guess my point is that as an engineer I am more apt to look at the inefficiencies of systems and to me the way people drive is very inefficient. Weaving in and out of traffic and flooring it to get a couple cars ahead only to stop is a wasteful and totally incomprehensible thing to do in my opinion, but that is almost all that I see anymore. It doesn't matter WHAT you drive, where you are, or what the price of gas is, this is a variable that we all have control over and is independent of those other things. I know it is an issue because I read so many forums where there is such a discrepency over how many MPG people get from the same make and model (DUH). I'll look into the math but it would be interesting to see how much would be saved if everybody would save just one gallon a week. I believe better driving habits would save even more than that, but that would illustrate what I am talking about.

I guess I must be the one with the problem. I think and see solutions that just don't make sense to everyone else. Then I get frustrated that not everybody "gets it".
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Post Thu May 04, 2006 7:10 am 
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fair67cp
Moderator


Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 189
Location: North West Maryland
math 101

Okay here are some numbers to consider. In 2002 there were approximately 200 million licensed drivers in the U.S. Recent estimates put our gasoline usage at 400 million GALLONS a day (about 9 million barrels). This works out to average only two gallons of gasoline a day for each driver. By driving smarter and paying attention at a minimum we should be able to save 1 gallon of gas per individual per week (I think this could easily be more), we bring our average usage down to 1.86 gallons a day and save about 30 million GALLONS a day of gas. That is getting close but not quite as much as 10% of a reduction! Tell me this wouldn't have an impact?

Do you think the drivers who are flooring it are getting to where they are going any faster? I wonder about this as I pass them going at my constant 35 or 45 mph as I have taken the time to look ahead to see which lane is moving and maneuver into it. Over distances it is all about averages, consistency, and direction of motion. They make racetracks for showing off acceleration and torque, why would anybody want to do it in the middle of a traffic jam???
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Post Thu May 04, 2006 12:25 pm 
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