There is fury everywhere over the skyrocketing cost of fuel. High gasoline prices are an enormous burden on everyone. For those who have no choice but to drive, for commerce that is under inflationary pressure, for airlines which must downsize while adding huge fuel surcharges - the crisis reaches into every corner of our economy.
What is missing is a reality check. What is missing is resolve by motorists and commercial carriers to look for alternatives. It is too late to switch from the car to transit, because most cities have virtually no viable transit system - especially in American cities and particularly in their sprawling suburbs. There are exceptions: Toronto, Montreal, Washington, San Francisco, New York and Chicago. Even in cities where the suystem is rudimentary there has been an increase in ridership. But remember, Americans invented the expression "loser cruiser" to describe local bus service.
What is missing is any initiative by government. They see themselves as powerless in an atmosphere dominated by big oil, by the simple economics of supply and demand, and by the part played by speculators. (Those so-called speculators, in my view, are simply people trying to protect their capital as the U.S. dollar continues to fade. Previously the "hedge" was gold - now is it oil.)
Why do we have a few pious fuel-saver drivers giving tips on how to use less fuel? Why do we not have government reducing (and strictly policiing) speed limits? Richard Nixon, of all people, lowered speed limits to 55 m.p.h. in the face of the first energy crisis.
Why have trucking companies not curtailed their long distance hauling by going inter-modal - putting their trailers on railway flat cars? Could it be that the folly of just-in-time deliveries, which keep thousands of trucks rolling, has fuelled tha problem?
Why have governments not entered into public/private agreements to build alternative travel systems?
Why have the major car manufactuers, who long ago promised a quick turnaround when a model change was demanded, still unable to cope?
Why have we totally ignored the compressed air engine invented more than ten years ago by a French engineer and now in service running buses in South Africa?
Of course the rising price of crude was inevitable. Developing countries are building the same kind of car-dependent infrastructure that we built years ago and has now laid us low. We are still obessessed with highway building. It was once said about President Reagan that he viewed highway construction as an "investment" and rail construction as a "subsidy."
We have no one to blame but ourselves, which is small comfort to any of us. The reality is, regardless of who's to blame, that we are saddled with the one of the most burdensome demand on our finances that we have ever had to endure.
Unfortunately for all of us, we are exactly like government. We attack them for the failure to think ahead. We are just as guilty.
In a "free" society, you cannot compel citizens to do anything they don't want to do. That's at the centre of current laissez faire political thought.
How about this: the government imposes gas rationing, and as in the past there will be two classes of driver: one for whom the car is an absolute necessity, and the other for whom the car is a convenience. Limiting fuel supplies to the latter group might reduce the ridiculous one-car-one-driver situation your see among commuters and oblige drivers to either pool or take whatever transit system is available.
To the lament "If I take transit it takes me an hour longer to get where I'm going" - I reply - get out of bed an hour earlier.
Or is it too late to wake up?
