There was a time when I actually trusted the basic intelligence of the American people. Little by little, however, I find that trust eroding. The erosion started when we reelected George W. Bush and continued this past November, when the citizens of certain states elected several clearly-incompetent idiots to Congress. So it shouldn't surprise me when we, as a group, continue to make stupid decisions.
Nevertheless, I was bothered the other day when I picked up my newspaper and read what I would call a good news-bad news article. The good news is that auto sales are picking up. The bad news is that people are buying mid-sized SUVs instead of sensible smaller cars with good fuel efficiency.
I'll concede that some people may actually need a mid-sized SUV, such as families with children of a certain age. However, given the disproportionate number of SUVs on the road today, I think that it's safe to say that most SUV owners would be just as well off in a family-sized sedan such as a Toyota Camry or Honda Accord and possibly even a smaller car such as a Corolla or Civic. They would also save a lot of money in the process.
Wake up, people! Cars may have become more fuel-efficient over the years, but we have negated those improvements by buying larger vehicles. The average vehicle on the road today gets about 18 miles per gallon--the same as the average vehicle on the road in 1985. How are we ever going to reduce our dependency on oil if we aren't willing to use our heads and buy sensible, fuel-efficient cars? I have a 1992 Toyota Corolla. My next-door neighbor has a Honda Pilot, considered to be a mid-sized SUV. Take out the seats in the Pilot and I could park my Corolla inside of it.
Haven't we learned anything from recent history? Gasoline isn't always going to be as cheap as it is today--if you can call $3 a gallon cheap--or as plentiful. During the oil embargo of the 1970s, when the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) limited the production of gasoline to drive up prices, many gas stations were consistently out of gasoline. Word would go out that a certain gas station would be getting a delivery on a Friday night and dozens, if not hundreds, of cars would be lined up at the station early the next morning. Usually you were limited to eight gallons, and you hoped and prayed that the attendant walking around with that "Last Car" sign didn't put it on a car ahead of you.
We didn't have SUVs in the 1970s, but even after the oil embargo was lifted, the market for large, gas-guzzling cars plummeted and the dealers could hardly give them away. If gasoline ever gets back up to $4 a gallon, as it did a few years ago, you won't be able to give away SUVs.
Haven't we learned that we need to be saving money? A sensible car costs about $10,000 less than a typical mid-sized SUV. That $10,000 can go a long way if you lose your job.
Also, every 1 mpg improvement in gas mileage can save you $1,000 over 10 years. Put another way, by buying a sensible car that gets, let's say, 28 mpg instead of an SUV that gets 18 mpg, you'll save $10,000 over 10 years, or $1,000 a year. And that's just in gasoline, at today's prices. That sensible smaller car will also probably cost you less to maintain and keep in good repair.
Maybe you heard that some economists are cautiously saying that the economy may have turned the corner and is now on the upswing again. Take that with about a pound of salt, my friend. Unemployment is still at 9.8 percent. If we are lucky, maybe it will improve to about 9 percent by the end of 2011. Some improvement.
I hate to tell you this, but I believe that the economy still hasn't bottomed out yet. Every state in the country is in trouble financially, and because the states are in trouble, so are the counties and incorporated towns, because the money flowing to them from the states has been reduced. To compound the problem, the federal money flowing to the states is drying up, so things are only going to get worse at the state and county levels. What's going to happen when hundreds, if not thousands, of public employees at the county level lose their jobs--teachers, firefighters, law enforcement officers, librarians, and so forth?
Use your heads, folks! If you need a new vehicle, buy something that you'll be able to afford to run even in the worst of times. Leave the SUVs on the dealer's lot.
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