Cause and Effect

Ah, America. Land of the land boat. It’s our right, after all, to drive SUVs and even Hummers. It’s practically a death sentence for any politician to suggest that maybe there’s a reasonable alternative. So we keep sending shiploads of money to other countries around the world in exchange for shiploads of the precious fluids to fuel our fantasies of putting the kids (and we have more kids than the Italians for sure) and driving a few hundred miles to see grandma. So consider the european solution – or at least in this case the Italian solution.

Remember: click on any photo and you can see larger versions of all of the photos.

First: THE CAUSE

So I’ve done the calculations to help out here. That comes out to 6.18 euros/U.S. gallon. At today’s exchange rate that would be $8.65. Even if the dollar were at parity with the euro ( I wish!) that would be pretty darned expensive by american standards.

Now: THE EFFECT

What? You have trouble parking and gas is expensive – here are some alternatives.

The European versions. You won’t see any of these on American roads.

Asia knows a good thing too.

Ah, but these cars are already making inroads.

And from the land of the free and the  home of the brave – but these models don’t exist in the U.S.

And, of course, the classics.

Of course there are differences. Italy, being a much older country, is built on a much more compact scale. Indeed the entire country is a little smaller than California and Europe is substantially smaller than the U.S. Still, it makes sense to realize that rarely do we pile everyone in the car for long distance travel. As gas prices continue to rise I expect us to go further, kicking and screaming, in the same direction. You can already see the trend, especially in my area of California.

But, what about the bicycles and motorscooters (motorini in Italian). They’re only for the young, right?

 What’s the matter with you, boy? You some kinda’ communist or somethin’?

A presto!

This entry was posted on Friday, September 16th, 2011 at 6:05 am and is filed under Culture, Vehicles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.