I've always had a vague notion of Canada as a bit of a "greener" country than some others. I've got to say though that my experience is very different. For one thing, car culture is firmly embedded here on a massive scale.The sheer space available and the fact the place is built around the car means it works (unlike our permanently gridlocked UK city) but it definitely ain't green.
Half the vehicles on the road are "trucks" and a there's a good scattering of Hummers too. For the last few weeks I've been bombarded by the ads for the latest (and apparently greatest) truck - the Toyota Tundra. Sadly the strength, size, power they keep pushing seems to be used by most people just to drive the mile or two to work each day or make it through the challenging terrain of the highway to the drive-through.
The amazing thing is that most people genuinely don't think about it for the most part. While the UK gripes at, moans about and punishes people driving the kind of small 4x4 you mostly see, people here think nothing of snapping up a truck twice the size, it's 5.7 litre engine probably double what most UK SUVs have. I really feel the bigger problems and the place to start is this side of the atlantic.
Hi, thought I'd pop over from the expats forum and have a look-see. Aren't there any economical cars available that are suitable rather than just gas-guzzlers?
ReplyDeleteIs there a penalty for those that opt for the gas-guzzlers, apart from the added fuel costs?
You will see from my blog that we are hoping to go to Vancouver Island, lots less snow there! Looks like fun though, especially the sledding.
As far as I know vehicle tax only changes for commercial vehicles and so on, a passenger car is a passenger car. Of course fuel is so cheap here (complaints when it hits $1 per gallon!!) that there's little issue there either.
ReplyDeleteYou can get smaller cars, I got a 2.0 petrol VW Golf but it's very much one of the smaller cars on the road.
Words like "small", "economical" etc are only starting to enter the vocabulary here given the "outrageous" fuel price rises... :-)