Ken Anderson, Las Vegas

Wed, May 14, 2008 (2:04 a.m.)

In a letter to the editor in Tuesday’s Las Vegas Sun, Stacy Standley challenged Americans to stop their complaining and change their gasoline consumption habits. The letter clearly stated that people all over the world are suffering with higher gasoline prices, but most countries drive accordingly, not America. The letter is right on.

Some of us remember the lines of cars at gas stations in 1973, where we had to turn off our engines until we could drive one car length closer to the pump, and some drivers actually pushed their cars that car length.

We were told that the world was running out of petroleum, so we all should go out and buy fuel-efficient cars. And we did afterward, many of them purchased from Japan, because the American manufacturers were not offering a comparable product at that time.

Memories are short, and for the past decade or so we have watched people buy SUVs, even for driving to the corner to buy a cup of coffee and a paper. This attitude certainly increased the demand on fuel. Today we are in a real dilemma. Prices have gone up faster and higher than at any time in history, and there is no relief in sight.

Is America going to have to wait for a new administration in Washington to formulate an energy program that will encourage manufacturers to produce energy-efficient automobiles? And why isn’t the industry moving on its own without policies dictated by the government?

The bottom line is that all of us are part of the problem, and a new paradigm is in order.