Please stop complaining about gas prices in the U.S. I honestly feel for small business owners, truck drivers and others who are having difficulty making ends meet with the surge in gasoline prices. But when I see interviews with individuals, standing next to their SUVs and complaining about prices, I feel no sympathy.
Here in Japan, regular gasoline averages $3.50 per gallon. In most cases, the cost of tolls and gas adds up to more than the price of a train or bus ticket for one person. So, logically, most people leave their cars behind when traveling alone. It is much more energy efficient to ride with 20 others in a bus or with a few hundred other passengers in a train. For this reason, I was perplexed by a CNN interview with one man who said he might have to cancel his annual interstate drive because the total cost of the trip was almost equal to that of an airplane ticket. Well, then fly!
Of course, the U.S. has a long history of reliance on cars at the expense of building fast and efficient public transportation. In many U.S. cities where I have lived, it would take a full day to run a few errands if one had to rely on the local bus system. Couldn’t those errands be run in a fuel-efficient car rather than in a monstrous SUV?
Unfortunately most people only stop wasting energy when it gets expensive. So rather than eliminate the state gas tax, why not increase it and use the revenue to improve public transportation to the point where it becomes faster than inching along the crowded highways in vehicles that burn almost as much gas as a 1969 Cadillac?
