Tuesday, May 8, 2012

How Government Wrecked the Gas Can

Via Unc, a tale too many people miss in the hustle-bustle.
It fascinates me to see how these regulations give rise to market-based workarounds. I’ve elsewhere called this the speak-easy economy. The government bans something. No one likes the ban. People are determined to get on with their lives, regardless. They step outside the narrow bounds of the law.

It wouldn’t surprise me to find, for example, a sudden proliferation of heavy-duty “water cans” in 1- and 5-gallon sizes, complete with nice spouts and vents, looking almost exactly like the gas cans you could get anywhere just a few years ago. How very interesting to discover this.
Maybe you can't stop the signal, but you can sure muck it up.

And yes, speaking as somebody who uses gas cans a lot, the new designs have probably cost me hours in total, just filling the Jeep. Safety-wise, it's not an improvement. But as a way of keeping how important the government is right in my face at all times, it works like a charm.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Right on Joel. I'm 70 now and holding 50 pounds waist high for 20minutes to pour into my pickup or shoulder high to pour into my tractor doesn't make me happy. Jeff

Anonymous said...

Aw hell, I'm only 43 and holding those damn cans waist high is a bummer for me, too. Those damn nozzles leak like hell. Change you can rely on to corrupt the atmosphere. The old straight pipes never made the mess the CARB approved(which must mean they are designed to pollute more) ones do. EPA + CARB + AQMD = bags o dicks that do nothing but make everything worse.

Kinda of like everything else government does.


Buck.

Anonymous said...

Ice pick + Golf Tee = Problem Solved

BobS