Monthly Archives: June 2008

Columnist George Will is on to something here.

“Democracy,” said H.L. Mencken, “is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.”…Disqualified from complaining are all voters who sent to Washington senators and representatives who have voted to keep ANWR’s oil in the ground, and who voted to put 85 percent of America’s offshore territory off-limits to drilling. The U.S. Minerals Management Service says that restricted area contains perhaps… 10 times the oil and 20 times the natural gas Americans use in a year.

Here’s an unforeseen consequence of high gas prices: more people are letting their gas tanks edge closer and closer to empty before they fill up. Sometimes motorists are putting in only half a tank at a time. That means more drivers are running out of gas and getting stranded. Calls to AAA have doubled in some areas.

This is, to be polite, dumb.

The only way to use less gas is to drive less. Letting the needle tick down all the way to E doesn’t save a drop of fuel. If you fill up only halfway, you still spend the exact same amount of money on gas. And you now have to make twice as many trips to the gas station.

Maybe the people who wait until empty are waiting, hoping, praying that prices will come down before they refill. Maybe the people buying half a tank at a time are doing the same. Maybe they don’t have enough cash in hand to buy a full tank.

Or maybe they’re just fools. Who knows?