European Cities Do Away with Traffic Signs
This is not directly fuel-related, but is an interesting experiment in Europe regarding an alternative to traffic hyper-regulation… I’m not sure that this would work in modern America. The drivers I’ve shared the road with in Northern Europe already drive gently and are courteous to others sharing the road.
From Spiegel Online
By Matthias Schulz
Are streets without traffic signs conceivable? Seven cities and regions in Europe are giving it a try — with good results.
…European traffic planners are dreaming of streets free of rules and directives. They want drivers and pedestrians to interact in a free and humane way, as brethren — by means of friendly gestures, nods of the head and eye contact, without the harassment of prohibitions, restrictions and warning signs.
…The utopia has already become a reality in Makkinga, in the Dutch province of Western Frisia. A sign by the entrance to the small town (population 1,000) reads “Verkeersbordvrij” — “free of traffic signs.” Cars bumble unhurriedly over precision-trimmed granite cobblestones. Stop signs and direction signs are nowhere to be seen. There are neither parking meters nor stopping restrictions. There aren’t even any lines painted on the streets.
“The many rules strip us of the most important thing: the ability to be considerate. We’re losing our capacity for socially responsible behavior,” says Dutch traffic guru Hans Monderman, one of the project’s co-founders. “The greater the number of prescriptions, the more people’s sense of personal responsibility dwindles.”
Monderman could be on to something. Germany has 648 valid traffic symbols. The inner cities are crowded with a colorful thicket of metal signs. Don’t park over here, watch out for passing deer over there, make sure you don’t skid. The forest of signs is growing ever denser. Some 20 million traffic signs have already been set up all over the country.
Psychologists have long revealed the senselessness of such exaggerated regulation. About 70 percent of traffic signs are ignored by drivers. What’s more, the glut of prohibitions is tantamount to treating the driver like a child and it also foments resentment. He may stop in front of the crosswalk, but that only makes him feel justified in preventing pedestrians from crossing the street on every other occasion. Every traffic light baits him with the promise of making it over the crossing while the light is still yellow.
…It may sound like chaos, but it’s only the lesson drawn from one of the insights of traffic psychology: Drivers will force the accelerator down ruthlessly only in situations where everything has been fully regulated. Where the situation is unclear, they’re forced to drive more carefully and cautiously.
Indeed, “Unsafe is safe” was the motto of a conference where proponents of the new roadside philosophy met in Frankfurt in mid-October.
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Key to Modern Life: Energy Ignorance
A good (long) article about a group of people who are eeking out a living in the wilderness of North Carolina, attempting to create a sustainable lifestyle where they live peacefully off the grid, and as efficiently as possible… What follows are some of my favorite bits from this comprehensive article.
By Joel Achenbach
Sunday, November 19, 2006;…THE KEY TO MODERN LIFE IS STRATEGIC IGNORANCE. There are so many things we don’t know about our lives and that, frankly, we don’t want to know. We don’t know much about the basic things that sustain us. We are clueless “end users” in elaborate industrial supply lines. Energy comes from distant power plants and oil refineries and pipelines and electrical grids, but we don’t think about them when we flick on a light or turn the key in the ignition. We live in a world we didn’t make, by rules and customs and laws we didn’t invent, using tools and technologies we don’t understand…
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Dems Take Aim at Oil Company Tax Breaks
From Associated Press
…For the most part, the tax benefits are ones that lawmakers talked of repealing this year when Congress struggled to respond to the public outcry over soaring summer fuel prices and oil companies’ huge profits.
Topping the list for repeal are:
-Tax breaks for refinery expansion and for geological studies to help oil exploration.
-A measure passed two years ago primarily to promote domestic manufacturing. It allows oil companies to take a tax credit if they chose to drill in this country instead of going abroad.
Democrats say neither tax benefit should be needed for an industry reaping large profits at today’s high crude oil prices.
Over 10 years, the production tax credit saves oil companies $5 billion and the refinery measure and exploration credit a total of about $1.4 billion, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates.
Other oil tax breaks probably will go unchallenged. That includes some passed by Congress only a year ago and others already targeted for repeal this year.
For example, House Democrats have no plans to change a provision that allows oil companies to avoid billions of dollars in taxes by the way they calculate inventories. The Senate this year agreed to a repeal; the effort was abandoned amid House GOP opposition and an uproar from other industries that also benefit from the tax language.
House Democrats also are shying away from tampering with more than $1 billion worth of oil- and gas-related tax breaks, enacted last year. These breaks largely benefit small companies or gas utilities rather than the major oil companies now awash in cash.
Nevertheless, the House and Senate are expected to push legislation early to force oil companies to renegotiate flawed offshore drilling leases that have allowed the companies to avoid paying federal royalties. The loss eventually could cost the government $10 billion, according to some congressional estimates.
Other prime targets of House and Senate Democrats include:
-Alleged price gouging. Proposals to create a federal price gouging law for gasoline and other fuels probably will move quickly.
-More incentives and mandates to expand the use of ethanol and biodiesel as a substitute for gasoline. Requiring oil companies to phase in retail pumps that deliver fuel that is 85 percent ethanol.
-Requiring power companies to produce a percentage of their electricity from renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power. Such a measure is a priority of Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., incoming chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
-Extending energy efficiency tax credits approved by Congress last year. Most are scheduled to expire at the end of next year.
-Expanding a tax break for buyers of gas-electric hybrid cars and offering more incentives for automakers to build greater numbers of the vehicles.
Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., who will take over as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said he plans hearings on legislation to spur further production and distribution of ethanol and biodiesel, and promote conservation.
But he suggested it will take time to produce legislation. “The process is a long one. It takes hearings, it takes fact finding,” said Dingell in a telephone interview.
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Plug-In Hybrids = 100+ MPG
A Plug-In Hybrid (PHEV) is essentially a regular hybrid with an extension cord. You can fill it up at the gas station, and you can plug it in to any 120-volt outlet. It’s like having a second fuel tank that you always use first — only you fill up at home, from a regular outlet, at an equivalent cost of under $1/gallon…
…PHEVs are meant to plug-in at night. In many areas of the country, overnight power is available at a lower cost. As PHEVs start to enter the marketplace, we’ll see increasing support from electric utilities, as they’ll offer reduced nighttime rates to incentivize off-peak charging. In some areas where wind and hydropower is wasted at night, the rate can be as low as 2-3 cents per kWh. That’s 20-25 cents a gallon…
…The nationwide electrical grid is only 3% petroleum-fueled, whereas transportation is almost completely powered by oil — 60% of which comes from foreign sources (and growing). Adoption of plug-in hybrids will transfer the overwhelming majority of our miles driven to nearly oil-free electricity. If all vehicles were plug-in hybrids we would cut our oil needs by 55%, nearly enough to eliminate foreign sources altogether.
The winning combination from an environmental and national-security perspective is the flexible-fuel PHEV — one that runs on biofuels, cellulosic ethanol, methanol, or alternative liquid fuel in place of gasoline. This will reduce the transportation sector’s use of oil to almost zero — and cut the United States’ annual oil needs by 2/3.
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Democrats Promise to Invigorate Alternative Energy
Depending on your politics, you may be happy, disappointed, or indifferent about the outcome of the Tuesday elections which resulted in the United States of America listing slightly to the left.
As with any great body at rest, the US Congress has tended to remain at rest over the last two or three years, especially in regard to encouraging the search for, and adoption of, alternative energy sources.
In the marching orders for the new leadership of the US Congress is a mandate from America to ween ourselves from foreign oil and prepaare ourselves for a future without an abundance of cheap oil.
Here’s a few related initiatives:
- Using the existing standards, immediately set a higher mileage requirement for all automobiles sold in the United States. A mandatory 7% increase in mileage within 2 model years, and a 15% increase in 5 years.
- Increase incentives for biodiesel, ethanol and other alternative fuels as well as wind, solar, geothermal and other sources of alternative energy.
- Renegotiate oil and gas leases that waived royalty payments to the government. Oil companies are getting filthy rich at the expense of the US Taxpayer. I feel that mutli-billion dollar profit each quarter for the last few years speaks for itself. It’s simply outragious, and America is being fleeced.
- We should explore for oil on public lands, I think we have to do this quickly and purposefully. We currently depend on volitile Middle East oil for 20% of our current needs. If we can hold-the-line on our usage by adopting more efficient practices, then we can greatly reduce our dependence on foreign oil by developing our own existing reserves.
Okay - that last one might not be a traditional Democrat position, but I think it is the correct path ahead.
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Fuelishness! Update
Hey there, Doc here.
Sorry that things have been so quiet the last few weeks - there has been a lot going on in my life, and as this is a one-man-show for now, these events have a serious impact on the amount of time and attention I could spend on FuelClinic and Fuelishness! But I think things are slowing down at work, and I’ll have some more time to read, analyze and write…
Also during this time I ordered and received a digital fuel consumption meter for review, and have enjoyed learning how my driving habits impact my average fuel economy figures. I’ll write more about all of that in a week or so, when I have some hard numbers on how much my MPG has changed since I installed this new real-time meter… but I think it’s been good enogh to convince me that each car I buy in the future should have a similar guage installed.
Here is an interesting read on the subject by a like-minded individual concerning his experience with a fuel consumption meter in his Honda:
My Mileage is Better Than Yours
…What does all this prove, except that driving is so dull that even keeping track of fuel consumption can liven it up? It proves that measurement changes behavior, one of those maxims dear to dieters, stock analysts, and advocates of standardized tests for schoolchildren. If, as with most cars, you have only the dimmest notion of how many miles to the gallon you get, it’s no wonder that fuel economy ranks low on your list of priorities. The minute you start measuring mileage, though, you start caring about it. You can’t help yourself — it’s like an itch. Your driving habits begin to change: no more jackrabbit starts, not ever; it’s too easy to see the toll they take on your gas tank. You develop a light foot, learn how to hold a steady 65 on the highway without any yo-yoing up and down…
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