Hehe. It’s kinda a myth that all of us are anti-environmental. Unless you find some specific subset of the car hobby like those “rollin’ coal” truck idiots (since their subset requires wasting fuel) it’s not at all uncommon anymore to find car people who think about the environment as well.
I always take amused pride in the fact that my sports car gets better in-town mileage than my daily driver. 
Then you might want to consider that consumption doesn’t increase because of legalization, even though the price usually goes down.
Oh I know. I just wasn’t sure if the “/s” was appropriate or not. 
Are they “too stringent to be followed,” or are some people just looking for a shortcut?
Here I’ve gone out of my way to balance the concerns of both sides, and here you come pushing this to an extreme.
I will say this though: If, indeed these EPA regs drive any owner-operators out of business, they can still make a decent living driving for a company. I too would prefer to be my own boss, but sometimes that is a luxury one cannot afford.
If these EPA regs drive any owner-operators out of business, maybe that is a function of how efficiently (or inefficiently) they run their businesses.
I live near one of the most liberal and progressive cities in TX, where global warming is taken seriously, but you’d never guess it by watching them drive.
Ah, yes…“Do as I say, not as I do”
;-]
I guess we all are guilty of stereotypes from time to time. Black/white nothing in between regardless of common sense. Either for or against. Aghast.
I think a lot of it is pure cluelessness. Global warming is of course caused by evil corporations, not by 200,000 cars in the city accelerating towards each and every red light, not by people cranking up the air conditioner so they don’t sweat while sleeping under quilts in the middle of August, not by traffic signals intentionally mistimed in a way to ensure that traffic has to stop right before it gets to the next intersection.
Nope, we don’t have to change our ways to end global warming, we only have to buy carbon offsets.
I just can’t help thinking about those poor Europeans in the little ice age in the 1600’s and how happy they were with a little global warming. I’ll bet they put the tops down on their carriages to bask in the warmth.
There is no significant global warming. This is based on the true evidence. Since this forum is not related to global warming, I am not going to type in the facts.
Since we all know each other’s tribal positions on global climate change, how about we refrain from beating this dead horse at every opportunity?
I think the point is that it’s increasingly difficult to remove the percentage of pollutants when it’s already so clean. Taking out 5 fish from a barrel that has 10 fish in it is considerably easier than taking out 5 fish out a lake that has 10 fish in it. It’s still 50 percent removal either way.
There’s diminishing returns when the regulations are ever more stringent in one area, and meanwhile other factors that are far more significant are ignored because it’s inconvenient to address them.
The fumes that jet liners at an airport put out are very noticeable, but I don’t think there’s going to be any legislation proposed on them to reduce them, as it would be too fiscally impacting.
The overarching point is that we have yet to see a citation for the claim. I even did some looking, and was unable to find anything about Alaska buying garbage to dump in the water in order to comply with environmental regulations.
As a truck driver for a nationwide ltl carrier I can tell you how frustrating it is to have a 2 year old truck spend WEEKS in a shop. Problem is when it comes back the bill is 3 to 5k and it runs for a few days before the same problems come back. I dont know how an owner operator can make a living with one.
And usually the "fix is warrantied because when it goes back it’s some other sensor causing the problem.
I drive a freightliner with a Cummins. It does a passive regen every 300 miles on average. Then about every 3 weeks it has to have a parked regen. While passive regen is happening it gets around 6 mpg. 8 mpg when running right.
Nationwide problem, not just a few dealers.
As a former company driver, I was sidelined for more than a week because my assigned Volvo with a Cummins engine had a burned out dashboard light for the idling system. Volvo insisted it was a Cummins system problem and Cummins insisted it was a Volvo system problem. That’s one reason I’ll never buy anything made by Volvo or Cummins, not after that experience.
Shadofax, job retraining usually amounts to squat. Everything you eat, buy use or drive is moved by diesel. Either by rail or road. I don’t like pollution but I wanna eat and buy clothes etc. The trucking industry has to be able to function.
No one said anything about getting rid of trucks. We’re saying if a company can’t afford to meet regulations that everyone else can meet, then they might go out of business. The companies that can afford to stay in business will simply field more trucks to make up for the drop in capacity caused by the companies that can’t.
To put it in perspective, you’re going to lose your job anyway once self driving trucks go on the market, because any company that can’t afford to replace its fleet with them will go out of business. The self-drivers will be able to run 24/7 without running afoul of maximum on-the-job time, they’ll be able to run much cheaper because a driver doesn’t have to be paid, or covered with insurance, and they’ll run more efficiently because you can get a convoy of 60 trucks running nose to tail with a few inches of separation which will improve fuel economy considerably.
Because of all this, the companies with self-driving trucks will be able to ship things faster, and for less money, and therefore the companies that don’t make the transition will lose their customers and go out of business.
And because of that, we’d better figure out what to do with unemployed truck drivers now, before it happens, because you guys are probably going to be the tip of the spear of significant job losses due to automation. You could almost consider the pollution issue a good dry-run for what’s going to have to happen down the road.
…and they won’t get frustrated when they have to waste time sitting at a warehouse waiting on cargo. I swear, the worst part of over-the-road driving is the waiting, knowing your 14-hour clock is running out and you only make money when the truck is moving.
On the subject of self driving trucks, we in the pickup and delivery section of the industry would rather see automated docks lol.
I make an average 16 stops per day. I drive about 150 miles. Some places get to you quick others take more than an hour. I backed into a dock recently and two guys on fork trucks were sitting talking to each other. I opened my door and put the dock plate in. They say and watched me. I sat on a bench and played on my phone for about 10 minutes before impatience took over. I went to them and they said they didn’t know why I was there.
What is it about their driving that bothers you? Are liberals not supposed to drive?
I’m a liberal, and I drive a lot. I’ve moved to where my commute to work is four miles each way, but my commute to graduate school is a hundred miles in each direction, and the drive to my mother’s house is two hundred miles each way. What am I supposed to do, put politics ahead of my desire to do better for myself by earning a master’s degree? Am I supposed to put politics ahead of taking care of my mother?
If you’re talking about Austin, TX, are liberals there supposed to ignore the urban sprawl in the area and live sheltered lives so you won’t think they’re hypocrites for wanting to spend the day at Hamilton’s Pool or Barton Springs?
Personally, rather than suggest someone live sedentary lives based on their political views, I’d rather they practice what they preach by driving fuel efficient vehicles. I’m happy to ridicule a liberal who lives in a family of four and thinks she needs an SUV to haul twelve cubic feet of toys everywhere she goes, but when I visit Austin, I see lots of hybrids and pickup trucks, and it’s not the liberals driving the pickup trucks.
I put a lot of miles on my vehicles, but they’re fuel efficient vehicles and they run well. Would you be happier if I was a deadbeat who didn’t drive and neglected his family? Would that fit your definition of “politically correct?”