Are you upset about the ups and downs of gas prices?
Just a note to let you know how our current administration along with many other political parts of our government is letting the auto manufactures and the oil companies put the financial screws to the average citizen in America.
South America, Europe and Asia have cars that are getting 78.5 mpg highway and 69 mpg average combination highway and city driving on a daily basis. These cars are no secret or mystery cars; they are everyday cars driven by normal people to work everyday on normal roads and during everyday driving conditions.
The VW Passat 1.6 diesel car driven in Germany, Italy and other European countries is one of these cars. It is also sold in South America on the open market. When the dealers in these areas were asked about the cars, they said that these cars are normal cars driven by average citizens, nothing special about the cars or people driving them. It is hard to believe the cars are manufactured in America by American workers but only sold in the overseas car markets. You cannot buy these cars in the U.S., they are not allowed to be sold or driven on U.S. highways. Ford has built a car that gets about 68-plus mpg that is also sold overseas and not allowed to be sold in the U.S. The cars are not allowed in U.S. dealerships, because of economic reasons, so they say.
The real reason we cannot buy these cars is because our highway tax that we are paying pays for about 100-percent of all road repairs; there is almost no federal help for road maintenance in the U.S. If these cars were allowed to be sold in the U.S., we would receive about half of the tax money for road maintenance that we presently do. This would create a major loss to the U.S. Government in income. The biggest argument the government has for this is that they are not as clean burning as our smog-restricted cars. This is a big lie because the less fuel we use, the less pollutants we put out with our cars. If we get 78 plus mpg it would take less gas to travel as we go about our every day driving. The government, the oil companies and big business wins again. If Europe, South America and other places in the world can have this type of gas mileage, why can”t we? We are building the cars in the U.S. and we can”t even take advantage of the ability to obtain these vehicles in our daily driving. Investigate these facts and then write to whomever necessary to try and do something about it. What a joke. Just another way our government gives us the shaft.
Fred A. Belka Jr.
Lakeport
