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Nothing wrong with driving an SUV if you can afford to do so, it is their money not yours being wasted.
It just takes a good shock to jar people into seeing how foolishly they have been spending money with current fuel prices. $4.00 gasoline is what we need, make the market more competetive for diesels and more fuel efficent gasoline engines.
The problem is that the average person is both not smart enough to see their dire situation, and not caring enough to do anything but make themselves feel good in the here and now. So, they buy vehicles with thirstier engines than are prudent, they drive faster (using more fuel in their thirsty engines) than is prudent, and buy vehicles that are inherently less efficient by virtue of the previous two reasons, amongst others. Why? Because they think that they 'deserve' it, and because they are fancier than they can afford, but 'have' to show it.
What happens when you absolutely need something, and you buy more of it than you can really, robustly afford under ANY situation. Now, say that for whatever reason, you can't easily get rid of this item that you absolutely need, because it costs a LOT of money to unload. Well, that is what the average car buyer is facing.
People buy more car than they can afford. They are on the verge of severe debt, and are alredy sitting on a LOT of non-mortgage debt as it is. They finance a quickly-depreciating asset in the name of vanity AND must-have, due to conveyance being mandatory.
For folks that can affrd thirsty vehicles, it is what it is, and they will use them regardless of fuel prices, because they can afford it. Additionally, the folks that can truly afford these vehicles at any price are only a small proportion of the population.
Now we are in a situation where too many people have too thirsty of vehicles. They need them absolutely, and can;t afford their purchase price, let alone higher costs of operation. They are in a situation where they MUST buy fuel to remain employed, to be able to pay their bills, which are higher every day.
WHen more than the critical amount of the population is in such a situation, guess what happens??? they get manipulated. Why? because their choices, practices and behaviors are such that they have to do what they are already doing, are not flexible (or smart enough) to change their behaviors, and continually offset their worsening positions the easy way - by incurring more debt.
When you have a large portion of the population in this unsustainable position, it is nothing but smart business on the part of big oil, opec, etc. to take advantage of this. Then, the commodity traders take advantage even more!
Nobody is truly guaranteed any real, required item - heat, food, water, etc. And there is no guarantee of fuel availability at low prices. We bring trouble onto ourselves by the decisions we make.
People driving fast is a problem because the folks that can't truly afford the unsustainable behaviors are also the people practicing them a lot of the time. In the end, unsustainable activities continue until things fall apart and crash, at which point who picks up the tab? The rich? not likely... the people who caused the issues for themselves? nope... instead it is the people who made the right decisions all along and can then be used. So unfortunately, those of us who are trying to be as reaonable as possible need to be bothered about these activites, as we are the ones paying the same prices as the rest of the folks, and who will be footing the bill when they mess up. Additionally, in the hope to delay/prevent the point where unsustainable behaviors cause a crash, those who are responsible have t try doubly hard to make up for others' bad choices.
Its a vicious cycle, and its really lousy. And most of us hard working reasonable folks who do save, dont incur debt, and try really hard to make things good for ourselves by being careful withour choices and finances, will be screwed in the future.
JMH
