Mileage

Like most of you my family sees the problems with the price of gasoline worldwide. I would like to share one potential solution. Though it is a best a short term solution to a very long term problem, still it is a start in the right direction.

First of all, like many families we now look at our SUVs differently. Mine gets 18.7 miles per gallon and is a four wheel drive SUV which is great in snow or rain or mud. My wife's gets 11 miles per gallon at best but can haul 1 adult and 6 kids or teenagers, a total of 7 people. Mostly for now we have pretty much decided to park the 11 mile per gallon vehicle for now except when 2 suvs are needed in exceptional circumstances. We also have a motor home that funny enough gets 12 to 14 miles per gallon. It is mostly parked too.

However, our solution is not to go buy a hybrid car. Our reasons for this might surprise you. First of all, even though a hybrid like a Prius might get 40 to 50 or more miles per gallon I don't necessarily consider passenger car hybrids that one uses every day for work as safe for humans to ride in. I lost my father to bone cancer that was caused by working under 130,000 volt lines in a power generating station. Before he died he taught me about coronas and how they can damage human tissue and cells. Though I think hybrids are generally safe to ride in I think they are unsafe if one rides in one every day for years. I guess it is a little like cell phones. More and more studies are finding how serious long term use of cell phones can be. There aren't enough years of exposure to fully understand this yet but 20 or more years of heavy cellphone use could be very damaging. So I worry about especially young girls and young women who spend hours on cellphones and how they could be damaging not only their long term health but also the genetic health of their babies and future generations worldwide. So I'm very concerned about the long term (ten to twenty years or more)use of cellphones, standing to close to microwave ovens in use, being close to electric motors or generators or alternators that use or generate more than 10 horsepower AC or DC. Remote or cordless phones in houses and apartments etc etc. etc.

Because my father was an Electrical Contractor and Electrician he understood a lot about this. However, his death from bone cancer taught us what long term exposure to high voltage can do to a human body.

So, though hybrid cars might be relatively safe in the short term, I believe in the long term of 20 to 30 years or more they likely will be deadly on the health of people riding in them long term. I believe the likely kinds of illnesses that will come from these things will be: immune problems, leucemia, and many kinds of cancer. It is not that one cannot get these things from insecticide or herbicide on plants and food or through exposure to paint or even old lead paint or lead in the soil from long term traffic that used leaded gas from the early 1920s until the 1970s when lead in gasoline was finally banned.

Anyway, to make a long story short I think a high mileage car like a Toyota Corolla, Honda Civic or other car that gets above 30 miles per gallon regularly is the best long distance driving option and health wise preferable to a hybrid. Since people don't drive Motorhomes every day I think that hybrid gas electric or diesel electric motorhomes without all the batteries is a very good idea too. No batteries makes it safer in an accident as well.(less chance of electrocution without the batteries).