Highway 101 is filled with commuters, passing me with sour looks on their faces, pushing along at 65 and 70 miles per hour. The simple alternative of matching my speed, 55 miles per hour, will cost most of these drivers who live in Paso, Arroyo, Atascadero, Five Cities, or Santa Maria, no more than 2 to 10 minutes travel time but will save them a full tank of gas each month...anywhere from $60 to $100 per month or $720 to $1200 per year. If everyone in America drove 55, we cut our total oil consumption by 20%. Immediately. More drilling?? I think not; instead, more conservation (with money in your pocket as a result). For all of you are running at the limits of what the law allows, you are creating your own problem, you are draining both your tanks and your bank accounts.

Try standing on a street corner with a small child and your hand out. Works every time!

This is not true in modern times. I also believed that 55 was the most efficient MPH to conserve fuel. I have spoken to many car experts who have advised that 65 MPH is now the most efficient speed to conserve fuel based upon the modern engine. But I do agree that we need a Federal speed limit imposed.

Why do WE believe this is a new problem? The fuel problem has been a thorn since the Carter Administration. We must change our behavior and driving habits. If you own a SUV and can afford the gas prices now, then good for you. But, if you own a SUV and complain about the price of gas, then shame on you. How many of us drive our children to school, when a school bus drives by our front door every school day? Do we know what carpooling is? How many of us drive to the supermarket every time we are missing an ingredient from our dinner? It comes down to behavior modification. We are now competing with India and China for gas, which have become industrialized nations and WE need to adjust our driving habits to compensate. It is basic economics. Don't blame the oil companies, they are not to blame. America need to become more self sufficient and needs to begin drilling where environmentalists have told us not to drill. In addition, we need Flex Fuel vehicles. Our auto makers have the knowledge to manufacture these vehicles, but have not, because we are a spoiled nation that wants our big V-8 vehicles. It all comes down to basic economics, supply and demand. If you slow the demand, then the price will come down. It's up to ALL of us to change our driving habits and to limit the demand. We are the gas saving tip!

I have modified my driving habits ... no jack-rabbit starts ... drive the speed limit or less if safe to do so ... coast when you can ... don't idle too long ... check your tires once a month ... I buy my gas at Costco ... their prices are consistantly lower then anyone else and you get 3% back if using the Amex Card.

elder: Right. If I try to drive any slower than the other maniacs on the road doing 80 mph, I get the finger, honking horns, dirty looks, and cut off almost to the point of having an accident. You can't win and I give up. So, I just do 80 with everyone else.

DON'T PANIC! DON"T SELL YOUR SUV TO THE JUNK DEALER!

Begin at the beginning. Why do you own, need and use a car anyway?

Most of us buy a car with these priorities: 1) Get us to work, the store, to school, the shopping center, the gym, the ball field...2) Get us to a variety of locations that make us feel good, i.e., from SLO to Monterrey on ONE or to the desert or the mountains or the Redwoods or to the favorite eating and watering hole...3) We simply enjoy having the sparkling new contraption that smells good...

Take a look at a few facts or assumptions: You do not buy a car just to haul your own fat carcass around. Your car is of no value if it will not transport at least four adult persons or six rug rats. The Greens can spout all day and their "crossovers" still will not dependably transport even the driver very far, and the facts are beginning to reveal that you won't save one centavo. In any event, the "crossover" will not transport four passengers 100 miles with reasonable comfort. In other words, if buying the "crossover" is the solution, simply forget owning a car. Buy a golf cart. And that means most of us will simply move closer to work, buy a tent for the beach and forget the desert, distant mountains and The Redwoods. In other words it's back to the asphalt jungle of Goonsville. So be it!

Probabilities: Two years from now we'll be driving the same sixes or eights that presently serve our purposes; either the gas prices will decline or we'll adapt and pay the price; the professors will still be saying that we are embarrased to own our Explorers, Suburbans, Envoys, Yukons, Escalades and be just as wrong as they are about global warming; we'll realize that the 18 mph we're getting is just about right for a vehicle that will do all of these wonderful things. Look for the quid pro quo just as you would with any device that has a multiple utility. Surely, you will not discontinue your entertainment budget because of the oil politics.

We are going to discover that the world is not running out of oil; that we have no alternative to fossil fuels, and that all of this phony crisis is related to somone's desire to get us dammed obstreperous Americans under "control." It's all about power, and I don't mean automotive power. If you still do not get my picture, just understand that someone wants you standing at that bus stop every morning, home every night and taking a local train to your vacation spot at a designated time each summer..

The answer, as it is to all human concerns, PRODUCE MORE. Yow! More oil, more cars with 12 cylinders, more nuclear energy, more beef, more pork, more tomatoes more thongs... you get the idea.

Your alternative is to sit on your porch in your cane bottom rocking chairs awaiting The Obama truck or McCain's Goofy Mobile to bring your welfare commodities, i.e., one pound of salt, 5 pounds of potatoes, 5 pounds of some kind of "flour," 5 pounds of denatured LARD and this week's revision of the Koran.

One great advantage arising from all of this simplistic offense to our intelligence will be that the doubtful "Anglo" and the militant Jose will agree that just maybe they will make an interesting if testy political combo. And, if that happens, the Green will sail off into his favorite Typhoon and the Socialists will melt, rebuild their 60's coffee houses and find the old Mary Jane bags. All we'll hear from them will be,"Hey man, close the door and turn off that bright light."

And if you are ready to point out that GMC is closing the Envoy plant in Ohio, be advised that they were contemplating closing it anyway. Let's face it. Ford and GM are hoping we don't know that they are slithering out of the country as quickly as possible. Probably to Bulgaria. That's were i would go if i had been knocked in the head by the creepy socialists of the good old USA.

Now, the only gnawing worry is what we can do to keep The Obama and the Arizona pogo stick from nationalizing the oil industry which will essentially nationalize all of our service businesses since oil is the root of everything from garbage bags to toilet seats.

Don't panic. Your SUV is a symbol of your freedom, and they know it.

AN ASIDE...

Someone just asked: Why would anyone go to Bulgaria? Where is Bulgaria, anyway?

Quick Answer: The most beautiful women in the world are in Bulgaria; and Bulgaria is in Eastern Europe, in the vicinity of Count Dracula's Castle, Dr. Frankenstein's castle and lab and The Wolfman's bog. What do you suppose the new Fords and Chevrolets will look like?

jlwils: You don't have to believe anything, you don't have to "ask the experts". Drive 65 mph on one tank and 55 mph the next. Compare the mileage.

jjp009: I haven't gone over 55 since gas was $3.50 (the good old days, lol) and I've never gotten a finger, horn honk, and very few dirty looks...and those only in the morning when many are jacked up on caffine, sugar, or both, late, and stressed to boot.

I had to laugh when someone here proclaimed, without irony, that "Your SUV is a symbol of freedom".

That sentiment is a testament to the effectiveness of mass marketing and brainwashing.

The image that comes to mind is a gas station with a line of SUVs with drivers waiting to fill up their gas tanks so they can drive down the freeway to their 50 hour per week jobs, as they fantasize about their 48 hours of parole on the weekend.

Nothing wrong with that, and I don't wish to knock SUVs. But to think that one needs to flaunt their SUV as a symbol of freedom seems awfully pathetic. I would say that for a lot people, having an SUV provides AN ILLUSION OF FREEDOM.

Buying an SUV as a symbol for anything seems sad and is too often a testament to "lives lived in quiet desperation."

Call me crazy, but I don't think you can buy true freedom at the auto mall.

I think with most new vehicles, you get better milage with the windows closed and the AC on. The open windows cause more drag on the aerodynamics and yield poorer milage. If you keep your air filter clean it will help with milage. I'll echo the comments on having proper tire inflation.

Ring Ring...Sirsuds, the 60's just called...they want their stereotypes back. I guess you haven't figured out that it isn't the communist we demonize now. It's all about terrorists. So, you should call the environmentalists terrorists now if you are to use the appropriate cliche.

Brian,

Good Gawd, man! Am i happy you appeared. I was almost out of my mind with fear that everyone in this mausoleum was smoking tea and I had been black balled.

You surely jest! "Communist" is passe?

Do you realize that you have taken away my entire political vocabulary! I got three degrees learning how to spell communist. I presume that now I must sign on for another 75-year tour and get three more degrees learning how to spell environmentalist?

Some days it just don'y pay to git outa bed.

Thanks, anyway.

Here is a way to save gas- consolidate shopping trips! If the proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter is built in Atascadero, I will be able to do my grocery shopping, clothes shopping, general household product shopping, prescription drug and eyeglass shopping, garden shopping, etc. in one location. Currently I have to drive to several locations in Atascadero, or up to Paso to accomplish the above. Not only will hundreds of gallons of gas be saved over a year, think of how much time will be saved not driving around to different stores, or waiting at stop lights and in multiple lines to purchase items!

I try to consolidate my shopping trips into one monthly outing.... Costco for groceries, K-Mart and Walmart on the way home for other items. The problem is that all this stuff does not fit into my new smaller, more efficient 4 cylinder, almost zero emision vehicle. I now make 3 trips to get what used to fit into the Yukon in one trip.

We've pretty much reached the end of the line as to how much gas we can save from these same cute, feel-good "gas saving tips" we've been reading about and hearing on TV for the past three decades.

Even the people traditionally paid to re-compile and publish these tips have finally gotten so bored with it they now want US to do the work!

Fine!

Top ways to save energy: Quit shopping so much! Quit purchasing stuff you don't really need. Quit trying to buy your way to contentment.

Unfortunately these are not the type of gas saving tips you are likely to find in media sources that earn most of their income from advertising and stoking mindless consumer lust. The result: More smiley-face "gas saving tip" check lists as oil companies once again reap record profits, while tens of thousands more children contract asthma and other respiratory illnesses thanks to befouled air.

And the rest of us are still waiting for scientists to decide whether we should drive with the a/c off and the windows down, or the a/c on and the windows up.

Have a nice day!