The WAL

The price of gas sucks. Yes, I recognize that Europe has been paying theh equivalent of $2 per litre of gas for some years now and I certainly sympathize. However, I don’t live in Europe, the oil companies are raking in record profits raping us at the pumps, and the only reasons that oil is so high right now are fear, speculation, and George W. Bush.

But this is not a rant about oil and gas. This is a rant about driving etiquette, but fuel consumption enteres into it.

Because gas is in excess of $1.25 per litre most days ($1.306 on my way to work this afternoon), I’ve modified my driving habits with increasing my fuel efficiency in mind, mostly in the area of speed (and expanding my use of cruise control, but that’s a different discussion). I more or less drive the speed limit on the highway most of the time. Really. The difference between cruising at 120 and cruising at 100 is about 25% more mileage in my car, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less depending on road conditions and weather. This is a good thing, considering the previously mentioned price of fuel. And any extra fuel I don’t burn is extra CO2 and other crap I don’t pump into the air to make the planet hotter.

I do recognize that not everyone is slowing down. I can’t force anyone else to slow down. What I can do is set a good example and explain my actions and reasoning when asked or when it comes up in conversation. And there are also some things I can’t do for people who haven’t yet decided to slow down and who are dicks about it.

1. Speed up and change lanes so that you can pass me sooner.
2. Slow down and change lanes so that you can pass me sooner.
3. Wait for you to get around to passing me while I run up the tailpipe of the car in front of mine.

The first two are bad for my fuel efficiency and the third is just dangerous. All three also assume that I believe your schedule or destination is more important than mine. If you’ll think about that for a moment, I’m sure you’ll see why I’m not willing to burn the extra fuel to make you happy.

Oh, and just in case it’s unclear, by ‘you’ I don’t mean you. I mean the idiot behind me flashing his or her highbeams in my rearview because they think it will do something other than piss me off. Unless that idiot happens to be you.  And then I do mean you.

So what bothers me about gas prices isn’t so much the assume collusion between the major oil companies to set prices.  There are only a few of them and society has allowed that, so they can more or less do what they want.  Irritating, but less offensive than how the continually smack us all in the face with it.  Gas goes up for the weekend or holiday nad comes down after it’s over.  Summer is more expensive than winter.  Oil companies profits keep hitting new reocrd highs.  Charges in Québec last week and further investigations in other jurisdictions notwithstanding, there are things I just don’t understand.

How you can justify raising the price of gasoline cracked from crude weeks ago based on the price of oil going up today.  It doesn’t seem to work the other way around.  Prices take a lot longer to fall when oil comes back down.  This is called price gouging.  Really.

How you can justify raising the price of gasoline in your tanks purchased from the supplier at a lower price.  This doesn’t seem to work the other way around, either.  Wouldn’t it be smarter to keep the lower price as long as possible?  People would flock to your stations.

Why Wednesday is usually the cheapest day of the week to buy gas.  Furthest day away from a weekend in either direction, maybe, or are you training me to think this way the same way you’re trying to train me to think of $1 per litre as cheap?

Why everyone’s prices are all more or less the same.  Competition isn’t supposed to mean identical.

Why the volume is corrected to 15 degrees Celsius.  This might make sense somewhere the average annual temperature is actually 15 degrees.  Somewhere far to the south of where I live, perhaps that’s the case.  For the vast majority of Canada, and those parts of the US that actually experience winter, reality is something much lower.  In fairness, the global average temperature is currently about 14 degrees, so maybe that’s where it comes from, but for south-eastern Ontario, the real average seems to be between 6.5 and 7 degrees by the data I can find.  Never mind that the vast majority of pumps may or may not be calibrated correctly.

Why ‘Refining and Marketing’ costs are lumped together in those little pie charts eveyrone puts on the pumps.  I don’t think they have an awful lot to do with each other, and considering how much gas is sold in this country, I have a hard time believing the marketing budget could be very large, especially in light of how much advertising and marketing actually goes on.  I wonder if this is just a secret code for “hidden profit”.

I guess my real point is this, if you’re telling me to bend over, don’t pretend you’re not.  A little lubricant would be nice.