Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine wants an 18-cent gas tax increase - Polidicks

Because who do you think it's going to hit? Your average consumer, and gas can be pretty bad already.

I know, wouldn't that discourage overuse of petroleum by the average consumer?

You're oversimplifying this a lot. In this god forsaken state it's not like we have charging stations laying around, not to mention not everyone can afford to switch their cars right now, or even afford the better electric ones. Even hybrids are a bit risky to swap to. This is going to hit the average working American here, and it's not in any way shape or form good.

I wasn't thinking about getting people to switch to EVs, just getting them to use their existing cars less often and encourage carpooling.

That's likely not going to happen either, let's be realistic. Some of my coworkers for example live farther away, or far away from each other. In a lot of places carpooling may not even be an option just because of direction and distance. Not to mention in Ohio things can be rather far.

Indeed; especially if you live in a more agriculture centered area like I do. Farm fields in just about every direction. Basically required to drive to get anywhere. Public transportation basically doesn't exist unless you're in a bigger town or major city, and carpooling is only something you get if you're lucky enough to live within a decent range of any one of your co-workers, and you share their work schedule (if you work somewhere with different shifts and inconsistent hours, you're basically fucked), and you're on mostly good terms with them. Most of the time the gas used to go out of your way to pick someone up equals or exceeds the amount the person would've used if they just drove there themselves, so nobody bothers.

About the only way you can use your car "less often" in the states is if you stop joy-riding or cruising or off-roading for the hell of it anymore. Sure, you can walk, but in the winter that's not an option (nor is it in the summer in some regions), and even still some places have you miles away from the nearest grocery store.

There really ought to be some kind of widespread service where you can see who else in your local neighbourhood also wants to travel to the same place as you at the same time, as a manner of organising car pooling. And implement a kind of $ per km cost sharing component. Not only would it save fuel and the environment, but it would substantially reduce congestion on the roads as well.

The average person is too flaky and inconsistent for people to rely on others to get to their job.

Just because it’s like that in America doesn’t mean it’s like that in the rest of the world

I mean it's pretty much the same, people are people. Only thing that's different is the area you live in and how close.

It's ok Ohio bros, in Pennsylvania our gas tax is at 77 cents.

Tax the gas gobbling motors, not the gas. That way you don't tax the poor.

Please note he was talking about the United States, which is more than 50x bigger than Ireland. It is 10 miles to and from my workplace, living in a city. Before I moved, it was a 20 minute drive to any sort of store or workplace. America's infrastructure is much more spread out than Ireland. You cannot compare the two.

Michigan is considering the same thing, but like 50c over 10-15 years. I would bet that even with the gas tax increased people will still save money from having to fix their cars because of all the potholes and fucked roads.

Given that gas gobblers on average consume more gas...

Size of United States compared to Finland Size of United States compared to Israel Size of United States compared to United Kingdom

I mean I get the point you’re trying to make here, but the US being larger doesn’t necessarily mean that people actually commute further for a job. I’m sure the average commute is probably longer (especially in some states), but it’s not like a town with 50000 people takes up 50x less space in the UK compared to the US. Regardless you guys drive some cars with hilariously bad mileage anyway. Your cars are literally gargantuan for no good reason.

are you aware that most US oil comes from the US itself

hey let me tell you good sir I need to have the ability to traverse offroad, haul 8 people, and tow 10,000lbs on a moments notice while I commute along the highway from my suburb to the industrial area I work in. at least that's what everybody has been convinced of. my car gets about 40mpg which means I can go to work on about a gallon of gas

Except it does, because the infrastructure is built with vehicle usage in mind, while most of Europe was developed for foot traffic.

Yeah except that's not (exclusively, at least) because the US is a giant country, it's got a lot to do with the age of the cities and the public sentiment. Walmart isn't a ways out of town because there's far from the West to the East coast, it's a product of American policy and mentality. Where I'm currently interning, many people are commuting for an hour or more (either by car or public transit). My mom has been commuting 40 minutes by car for as long as I can recall. It's not really all that unusual here in Denmark. Either way what I said originally was that the commute lengths in the US aren't necessarily a product of the size of the continent. I never said commutes in the US weren't longer or weren't done easily by car. I wasn't really arguing what you've started discussing here.

This kind of demonstrates that you don't really understand the American situation considering Walmart is usually the only thing in town.

Or when you get into the even more rural areas that barely qualify as towns, you get a General Dollar, at most.

I don't want to keep going "this isn't what I'm talking about", but basically: Yes, in rural areas obviously a car is necessary, but in the US that also extends to cities and suburbia. The latter is not (purely) a product of the US' land area, and most of the US population does not reside in rural areas. What I'm trying to get across is that mall and shopping opportunities have been placed partially according to the dominant method of transport, meaning that these might be more inaccessible by other methods of transport now because cars have traditionally been favoured in the US. That doesn't apply to rural areas where you can't just plop down a Walmart in every 5-people town, sure, and my wording was imprecise simply because I wanted to phrase that a certain way, stupid as that may sound.

Last year Detroit had a novel solution, destroy all the outbound highways forcing everyone to stay in the city

That's the point. That way you tax rich idiots with SUVs, not poor people barely able to afford a Honda Civic

what about poor people who's only option is an ancient pickup truck that gets shit gas milage because they need something that can do work? ohio has quite a few of those

Surely taxing the motor itself is still the option that hits less poor people , even with this in mind? A gas tax would hit them either way