Is Baghdad's Gas Rationing Plan Fair?

[BobG]

How's this for a gas rationing plan. Driver's in Baghdad can only drive their cars every other day. Cars with a license plate ending in an odd number can drive on odd number days and cars with an even number of even number days. That hardly seems fair - there's at least seven more odd days per year than even - unless they're using a different calendar (that's probably even likely).

 

[Informal Logic]

How's this for a gas rationing plan. Driver's in Baghdad can only drive their cars every other day. Cars with a license plate ending in an odd number can drive on odd number days and cars with an even number of even number days. That hardly seems fair - there's at least seven more odd days per year than even - unless they're using a different calendar (that's probably even likely).

I think you set us up...anticipating that you were going to say it seems unfair since we are not rationing gas here in the US. Good one. After recent incidents such as the stampede on the bridge, I sure as heck would not walk around Iraq, assuming I would go out of the house at all.

 

[Art]

Britain actually did this same thing some years back during a petrol shortage and it actually worked quite well.

 

[edward]

How's this for a gas rationing plan. Driver's in Baghdad can only drive their cars every other day. Cars with a license plate ending in an odd number can drive on odd number days and cars with an even number of even number days. That hardly seems fair - there's at least seven more odd days per year than even - unless they're using a different calendar (that's probably even likely).

At 5cents per gallon can they complain? According to the article below the subsidized price of gasoline is so cheap that it is being smuggled to other countries and sold on the black market. That would certainly explain the shortage. Halliburton must haul more more more.

Privatization will also require the introduction of a new pricing system to the heavily subsidized market of refined petroleum products. In Iraq, government subsidies keep gasoline prices so low that it can be purchased for about five cents a gallon. Such low prices encourage not only inefficiency and over-consumption but also sustain a black market and an industry of fuel smuggling to neighboring countries.

http://www.meforum.org/article/736

The tab for that 5 cents per gallon subsidized price is being picked up by you know who.

 

[edward]

Britain actually did this same thing some years back during a petrol shortage and it actually worked quite well.

We could never do that in the USA. We only have two buses and one train.

 

[Grogs]

We could never do that in the USA. We only have two buses and one train.

Nah, think about it. There would be websites and newspapers dedicated to this. There would be articles like 'looking for person who lives in suchandsuch neighborhood who works near XYZ plant to drive on odd days.' You may have to ride your bike or walk a few blocks to find a ride, but it's probably doable.

It's not very realistic though. Maybe only odd license plates can get gas on certain days, but I doubt a plan to keep half the cars off the road on any given day would fly.

 

[Pengwuino]

How's this for a gas rationing plan. Driver's in Baghdad can only drive their cars every other day. Cars with a license plate ending in an odd number can drive on odd number days and cars with an even number of even number days. That hardly seems fair - there's at least seven more odd days per year than even - unless they're using a different calendar (that's probably even likely).

It might be done like they ration out water here where I live. If your address ends in an odd number, you have 3 days, even numbers have 3 other days, and 1 day there's no watering allowed (I assume that that 7th day would be an 'everyone can drive' day instead of a no driving day if this is how its setup).

 

[BobG]

It might be done like they ration out water here where I live. If your address ends in an odd number, you have 3 days, even numbers have 3 other days, and 1 day there's no watering allowed (I assume that that 7th day would be an 'everyone can drive' day instead of a no driving day if this is how its setup).

You guys get water 3 days a week??! Man, I envy you. We've been on two days a week since the drought of 2002 (we're still waiting for the reservoirs to fill back up). Grass is starting to look pretty thin in my front yard - the trees suck up any water available (including my drain - my annual visit from Roto-rooter is about every 9 or 10 months, now).

 

[edward]

Nah, think about it. There would be websites and newspapers dedicated to this. There would be articles like 'looking for person who lives in suchandsuch neighborhood who works near XYZ plant to drive on odd days.' You may have to ride your bike or walk a few blocks to find a ride, but it's probably doable.

It's not very realistic though. Maybe only odd license plates can get gas on certain days, but I doubt a plan to keep half the cars off the road on any given day would fly.

With families in the USA owning two or three cars there would be a lot of plate switching and car trading going on if the even odd system was used.

During WWII gas was rationed by the government. They did it by giving people ration coupons. No coupon no gas. They rationed meat the same way.
It worked then.

 

[Pengwuino]

Plate switching? You have too much faith in the non-laziness of this country :P

 

[edward]

Plate switching? You have too much faith in the non-laziness of this country :P

I would also see a big market for counterfeit plates.

 

[Pengwuino]

Cops won't give a crap. I doubt there going to go around looken at every license plate to make sure everythings ok. Hell around here, they are too busy looken for people without their stupid seatbelts on >:(

 

[Art]

We could never do that in the USA. We only have two buses and one train.

Britain has lots of buses - the problem is there's none for ages then they all come together.

 

[Hurkyl]

Hell around here, they are too busy looken for people without their stupid seatbelts on >:(

I don't think I've seen anyone pulled over out here. They just blitz by at 20 MPH over the speed limit with everyone else, and sometimes they're the one doing it at a following distance barely appropriate for stopped traffic.