On 3/27/07, Bob Blick wrote: > > --- Nate Duehr wrote: > > > There's a great bumper sticker floating around here > > locally... > > "Your Hybrid isn't saving the planet, it's just > > making you feel better." > > I take it the creators of South Park have the > residents of Colorado pegged pretty accurately? The > altitiude probably has something to do with the > attitude - the air is naturally cleaner up there. Not really... but they're good at pointing out a lot of American society's taboos in general. > Los Angeles has a lot nicer air now than in the '70's > - Thanks to the EPA and CARB. Los Angles is an overpopulated hell-hole, mostly. Lived there for a few months, can't believe people enjoy being that crowded in. > If I'm stuck in traffic I'd rather be behind a hybrid > than a diesel. See above. Over-crowding and over-ubanization leads to such concerns. Getting "stuck in traffic" is a daily concern in Los Angeles and a few other so-called "major" cities, and everyone caught idling on the freeway twice a day is probably a major factor in L.A.'s pollution problem. Any city (not just L.A., but this is an L.A. example) that has an AM broadcast station that gives traffic reports every 7 minutes and has an entire division of the state-wide Transportation Authority (CalTrans, if I remember correctly) devoted to the issuance of "SIGALERTS" (significant traffic alerts) just so people can get home within 2 hours of dinnertime... is grossly overpopulated. ("Major city" usually translates well to, "over-populated for no good reason".) Plus, were you behind a 1st or 2nd generation diesel (Mercedes-Benz 80's car) I'd agree with you -- but not something modern. And not a truck or a bus, as mentioned previously their heavy-hitter lobbyists get them special treatment. A properly operating 3rd generation diesel passenger car engine will rarely if ever put out any visible smoke, and out here... that's our test... visible smoke, and/or high NOx emissions, and the engine/car doesn't pass annual (maximum 3 years instead of annual on brand new cars) inspection and repairs (and a fine if repairs aren't undertaken) are required. > Biannual smog tests are also pretty effective. Last > time I was in Oregon it seemed every other car had > somehow "lost" its catalytic converter. We have those here, too. We were once the 2nd or 3rd worst city for "airborne contaminants", e.g. visual particulates, and we were way up the list on other nasty stuff including Ozone. Denver sits in a valley that naturally creates its own temperature inversion when cold air sits on top of the "bowl". The smog tests have worked here too, at the detriment of safety (they replaced annual vehicle safety inspections with smog inspections, and now we're a "no fault" insurance state and you regularly see vehicles with broken lights of all types, and brakes that squeal so loudly you can tell the vehicle's brake pads wore all the way down months ago), and we didn't have to ban diesel passenger cars. > There's a lot more to hybrids than fuel economy. They > make city air cleaner. And the fuel economy is real - > it's not just tires and aerodynamics. Remove the Prius' low-rolling-resistance tires (required for safe driving in serious ice/snow conditions, prevalent pretty much everywhere for at least some portion of the year north of what... about 38 degrees N latitude? HALF the U.S.) and it matches the fuel economy of the small diesels. Prius owners here get virtually the same mileage our diesel does, in the winter... and they gain a small advantage in the summer -- IF, they don't use their air conditioners. The truth of the matter is: Any worker who technically *could* work from home *should* be working from home. Politicians offering tax breaks for people spending big bucks on Prius'es should be offering businesses tax incentives to keep workers from driving (if they don't have to) in the first place, especially in overcrowded cities like L.A. So anyway, some background on why I hate L.A. is probably in order... My intense dislike of L.A. really stems from the insanity of living with stuff like this: http://www.seismo-watch.com/EQSERVICES/NotableEQ/Jun/0628.Landers.html I was there for that quake, and realized how stupid it was to live in such a densely populated area so prone to such seismic activity... lots of people are going to die there someday, and we the taxpayers will be paying for that rebuild... same as New Orleans, except Californians will be even more demanding that it be done right-away. So it's not personal, Bob. I just hate the place. Add in that I'm a private pilot and found the SoCal airspace just as congested (and ridiculously dangerous as the roads, even under the watchful eyes of some of the country's best Air Traffic Controllers), and I got far away and vowed never to return. I loved the practice in scanning the airspace around the aircraft, working quickly with ATC, and general fast pace, but realized the whole makeup of the city was a recipe for major disasters, long-term. It already is one, when it comes to pollution. They shouldn't be enacting tougher vehicle pollution laws, they should be trying to find ways to keep you all from driving so much in the first place. Nate -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist