Stop driving for a day, a week, as long as you can.

Starting July 4th, send a message to the oil industry cartels and congress that we want alternatives to fossil fuels: reduce oily consumptions.

July 4th is the apogee of the earth's orbit, the furthest the earth gets from the sun. Solar power and electricity are the best choice, as of today, to get out of the dead-end gamed oil market. Here comes the sun.

The thinking in the oil industry is that consumers are fickle change their minds about the environmental costs of burning oil when the price of gas goes up. They also think that if the price of oil is high enough that they can pay for the investment to chase the more expensive and dangerous to extract remaining reserves. The price of gas will be going up.

Today I read in the news that oil price rose 4% to $75/barrel because the US demand, and also global growth direction, has picked up. BP has told its shareholders that if the price of oil remains above $60/barrel that they will totally be able to afford the spill expenses and will carry on profitably. Too bad the industry is allowed to price fix and to get away with various excuses to boost prices at will.

We, as consumers, need to send the message that this dirty energy source just won't do, and we do not want this destructive industry to dictate the energy and war path of our future. Drive 55, or not much at all, until we get more action.

Pretend that we are paying an additional $5/gallon tax on gasoline to pay as we go into peak oil wars and spills, and drive accordingly. The nissan leaf will be out in September and should be an industry changer.

My wife can stop driving for almost an hour. She must come home.

Very few people live where they can go to work on foot, or shop on foot. Our entire civilization has been developed that requires some regular form of transpiration. You would have to re-engineer our cities to make you suggestion feasible.

California had the mandate to have zero-emission cars in 2000 onward but it was torpedoed by special interests.

Our choices were limited for us, and now we all get to feel like shit for driving around in circles while we are war and kill for oil, and it spills into the oceans and kills life, and CO2 melts the ice and the weather prepares to wreak havock on our little world.

from my home, except for the once a year camping trip 450 miles away, then once I'm at the camp ground the van sits until its time for the 450 mile trip back home where I then only use it to pay bills, go grocery shopping, once a month and trips to the doctors. Oh yeah, then there is the 15 mile trips to be with family on Thanks giving and Xmas.

Sometimes I have to go somewhere 3 or times a day.
But I average a little over a tank of gas a month.

I suggested a modest tax increase on gasoline in order to help curtail driving and raise revenue for the government.

Basically I was flayed alive for suggesting a tax increase.

I'm doing what I can, I use a motorcycle that gets close to 60 mpg to do most of my commuting and errand running, very few Americans use motorcycles for anything other than entertainment.

a "certain age" hauling their Harley in it's cute, enclosed trailer to a "ride" 50 miles away, behind their Escalade or Yukon. "In the wind," indeed. Once they get there, they unload, fire up, and ride another five miles to the bar they're gathering at. It's an amazing thing to see.

lives in an urban/suburban area, I don't blame them for not wanting to ride the bike in congested traffic. Twenty-five years ago, when I rode, auto drivers didn't "see" us, now with cell phones and texters, they don't even "see" other cars.

The Harley owners you see are like people who own any other kind of recreational vehicle such as a boat or a snowmobile, they take it to a place that's appropriate for its use. Unfortunately, that's not anywhere within 25 miles of a significantly populated area.

I started riding in 1972 and have hundreds of thousands of miles on motorcycles, I've been touched by another vehicle exactly once, I got bumped into from behind at a stop light and it made me roll forward about a foot.

Take your average car driver skills at defensive driving and multiply them by about ten and you'll get the long term motorcyclist. If you climb on a motorcycle with the idea that it is a two wheeled car you may not last long.

The majority of motorcycle accidents happen in the first 90 days of ownership.

Yes, you really need catlike defensive skills, but in most urban/suburban areas, you need them for driving a car, too. The cell phones, and especially the texters, are making things way too dangerous for all of us.

I don't blame anybody for carting their Harley out to the wide open spaces to ride out there.

On a per mile basis..

Riding, like driving, is a learned skill, if you don't ride much your skills are poor.

I ride now largely because I can't afford to drive the only other vehicle I have access to, an SUV that gets 12 mpg (not mine, it belongs to a family member).

You are spot-on, that's exactly what they do.

to strap a car seat to that motorcycle or bike so that you can take your child to school or daycare every single day? As much as I hate it, I continue to use my car as there is no other feasible options for me personally.

If I choose to ride the bus to my job 10 miles away, it would add an extra hour and a half to my commute. That does not take into consideration if I would have to make a stop, walk a mile to the daycare provider's home, a mile back with my 20 month old and then wait for the bus that comes once an hour to get me home, hopefully by 8pm that night.

Indeed, I'm a grandfather so I can see and sort of inhabit both sides of the child/no child divide.

I never said my particular solution was for everyone and I didn't mean to imply that it was.

On the other hand I see a great many people riding around all alone in a monster SUV that gets 12mpg (literally), even members of my own family do this and it's sometimes difficult to keep my negative feelings about it to myself.

and I finally got the electric car on the road. It was finally made viable by lithium iron phosphate batteries. I have been trying to invest in battery technology companies for 15 years. It has been a losing battle until now because the oil interests don't want competition, or want to control its development and marketing. It took the Chinese to make the breakthroughs, I am shamed to say.

The timing is right to end the oil gaming and wars.

Plan on using it for running errands and shopping and the like.

I'm excited.

I drive most of the time gets about 2000 miles a year put on it.

in the wake of Katrina, after Exxon posted record profits & the bush administration "accidentally forgot" to collect royalties.

The New York City MTA affords me that luxury.

When I stopped driving the truck every day and switched to the wife's car I had just replaced. Saved far more than I will by staying home on a Sat or Sun. That one change with my normal 15k/yr saved some 400 Gal/yr.

I live in a small village miles away from anything, and we have NO public transportation. When I have to run errands in the nearest "strip mall and big box suburb hell", I have to drive. However, I always do all my errands in one trip--once a week. For small grocery runs and trips to the post office, I walk to the local spots in my village.

I walk to do all my shopping

Give people MORE flexibility on how they approach this, and I think we could see more movement. Give one rigid option, and people throw up their hands and think they can't do anything.

It won't be for long. We're about five years past the peak of global petroleum production, and there's no "replacement" for the amount of energy oil gives us.

So if your choice of where to live has made you car-dependent, you might want to start re-visiting that decision.

I can't say I'll stop using my car entirely, but I'm cutting down on my driving significantly.

I can't give up driving though I'd love to. I live in the SF Bay Area, and AC Transit (buses) are cutting back on services.

80% of oil in Iraq/Afpak comes from BP.

Changing our driving habits is barely a drop in the bucket. We need systemic change and systemic solutions.

like food if you are not a subsistence farmer

we should all try it. If anything else we will save some money and maybe, just maybe, a little bit of our souls.

It is almost impossible for me to stop driving. My round trip commute is 20 miles starting at 5:00 a.m, leaving my home at 4:00 a.m.

My job as a surgical nurse requires me to make a daily round trip to help serve the community in need of occular surgery. My trips in my car mainly consist of work commutes. I rarely drive anywhere anymore except to work. My trips to the grocery, pharmacy and other incedentals are mainly done on my from or to.

I really appreciate what you are saying, but some of us have no choice and I am one of them.

I mostly work from home, so some weeks I drive hardly at all, but some folks have jobs where they HAVE to drive, such as you. And when I have appointments, I need to drive to them, as many of them aren't on bus lines.

Severely curtailing driving is not realistic for some folks.

It is not the fault of the working class people.

Even if it were, personal choice politics is not only no substitute for fighting for public policy change, it works against public policy change.