People who lived through the Great Depression and World War II tend to criticize wasteful lifestyles. Throwing something out when it could be reused or leaving a light on when not needed is abhorrent to most people who remember scrimping in times when even spare change was hard to come by and goods were rationed.
Conservation became a permanent value for them, despite the influences of succeeding generations that never knew such trying times and ushered in today’s throw-away mentality.
We’d like to believe that today’s drivers might be affected as their forebears were in the 1930s and 1940s. High gas prices have been with us about a year now, long enough to change our behaviors. Gas prices are falling, at least for now, which is good. But the question is: Are we going to keep conservation as a value or go back to our wasteful ways?
There is a good reason to long remember gas at well over $4 a gallon and conserve accordingly — a reason that goes beyond national energy goals. And that is, more of us will live to see old age.
The University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute this month released a study that tracked national highway deaths since gas prices started rising. The deaths weren’t just down — they were way down. In fact, the study’s author projects that highway deaths this year will be the fewest since 1961 — fewer than 37,000 deaths this year, while the annual average over the past several years has been more than 42,000.
Nevada is keeping pace with this trend. As of June 29, traffic deaths were down 21 percent over the same period last year.
The study’s author, professor Michael Sivak, says something more than just a reduction in traveling is at work here. People are slowing down and being more thoughtful all around about gas use.
Can we hearken back a few generations and keep this attitude, even if gas prices dramatically decline? We’d all be safer if we did.
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