(No, unfortunately, this one is not an “April Fools” joke.) Some 35 years ago, Americans first became generally aware that there could be a “gasoline crisis” — that our dependence on imported oil could combine with taxation, price controls, and other “well-meaning” government interventions to create fuel shortages, lines, all kinds of chaos. Suddenly, those [...]
In the early 1870s, Thomas Alva Edison declared “The time was right” to introduce the stock ticker and the printing telegraph. It was. Americans, grasping the benefits of his inventions and finding them affordable in relation to those benefits, willingly purchased Mr. Edison’s inventions; he and the capitalists who invested in the enterprise grew rich. [...]
Delinda Epstein, 51, was living in a townhouse in the swanky Las Vegas suburb of Summerlin, a few years ago. She owned a brand new truck, worked as an administrator for a Henderson construction company. But she lost her job in the recession. She lost her truck and had to move into a smaller apartment [...]
“Obama’s new rules will transform U.S. auto fleet,” read the May 19 headline. “Some soccer moms will have to give up hulking SUVs,” explained Associated Press auto writer Tom Krisher, fanning himself to keep from flushing with excitement. “Nearly everybody else will drive smaller cars, and more of them will run on electricity. The higher [...]
The typical American automobile in the early 1920s was easy to describe. It was boxy and black, offered a manual transmission only, and sported a straight-up four-cylinder engine. Creature comforts were few. On the bright side, if your car tipped over on a sharp turn — as the top-heavy contraptions were wont to do — [...]
Peggy Brown, a retired poker dealer whom I’ve known for some years as an upstanding and truthful sort, writes in that her 2003 Dodge Neon was in storage for nine months while she was out of state. When she got back, “I needed to get it re-registered and get new plates for it.” She stood [...]
In Washington Tuesday, a special commission appointed to study the need to repair the nation’s aging bridges and roads said the answer is to more than triple federal gasoline tax — increasing it by 40 cents per gallon over the next five years. The two-year study by the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study [...]
Last week, the Nevada Senate’s Transportation and Homeland Security Committee voted 5-2 to approve Senate Bill 61, which would allow “limited” use of robot traffic cameras to write tickets to Nevada red-light runners “on a pilot basis.” That vote forwards the measure to the Senate floor. The vote wasn’t even as close as the 4-3 [...]
Vin’s Blog at the RJ
