Forget the fuel use. This man spends 17 hours a day working and driving to and from work. How pathetic is that? I wonder what his poor wife thinks of his dedication?

I agree with the previous comment, what a sad life this poor guy leads. Certainly his case is extreme, but I bet the number of people in the U.S. who spend 2 to 4 hours a day behind the wheel would be shockingly high. Still sad if you ask me.

The guy was on the local news. He drives a recent Honda Accord, getting reasonable gas mileage since it's all highway miles. The car had about 200k miles on it. He previously owned a Civic that had close to 300k miles before they sold it "to a neighbor kid." His hours are actually not that bad. He leaves around 4:30am and gets home around 8:30pm typically. For that effort it means he gets a bit less sleep, puts his kids in better schools, and gives his family a better quality of life. I'm not sure this is as bad as it was made out to be.

I decided to drop Midas a little note. Feel free to copy and paste it into your own scathing email to rtroyer@midas.com...

Mr. Troyer,

I am all for rewarding someone for their "perseverance and commitment to their job and family." But in these troubling political and environmental times, I find it extremely irresponsible for a company such as yours to reward such a person with $10,000 of gas money. What you should be doing is giving away a hybrid car so he won't need $10,000 to pay for all that gas.

Unfortunately, you and the rest of the folks at Midas have missed a "golden" opportunity.

How about him just telecommuting to work and having that much more time with his family and "quality of life"? :)

I don't remember where I read it, but someone made the point that he works for CISCO, a very telecommuting-friendly company. He could probably work from home 3 days a week or something like that.

"He drives a recent Honda Accord, getting reasonable gas mileage since it's all highway miles."

True, but the bottom line is not mpg, it's is oil burned. I'd rather that he drove an Escalade that gets 13 mpg for a 10 miles commute than an Accord for a 372 miles commute..

He'll be the "Jared" of Midas. So long George Foreman.

Mr. H. Davis,

You do realize that your well intended letter is unfortunately incorrect in its assumption that a Hybrid car would make any difference in the fuel consumption of this particular commuter. Considering this gentleman's miles are all highway miles and presumably at a constant speed, he therefore would not benefit in the least from Hybrid technology. Too, the commute is too far for an electric car to handle. He would be better suited with a turbo prop airplane that would both speed his commute and more efficiently use the fuel that he's been consuming, but I doubt that Midas would provide him such a generous gift.

"Considering this gentleman's miles are all highway miles and presumably at a constant speed, he therefore would not benefit in the least from Hybrid technology."

He does 372 miles in 7 hours, that's an average of 53 miles an hour. We can probably assume that he's not just doing highway, or that he's doing some bumper to bumper.

Also, while it is true that hybrid give the biggest benefits in the city, they are also more efficient than other cars on the highway (depending on the model: very aerodynamic, low rolling resistance tires, small gasoline engine, lower weight, atkinson-cycle engine, CVT transmission, cylinder deactivation when cruising, etc), not to mention that their tailpipe emissions are cleaner. He'd get some benefits, though of course not as much as if he lived closer to where he worked, or worked closer to where he lives.

I myself drive over 100 miles a day, so I am in the car 3-4 hours a day, and occasionaly much longer. Before people judge me too harshly, I am early in my career, and took this job because the salary in the area I work is much higher than similar jobs were in the area in which I live. Also, I tried looking at working in areas with a cheaper cost of living, but many companies replied that they were no interviewing anyone that would have to relocate for the job, even if I was not asking for moving assistance.

Fast forward to today, and I have more work experience and certification, so hoepefully it will be easier to get a job closer to home that pays decently, or a job in another state which has a lower cost of living. As much as I want a cleaner environment, my main motivation is to spend more time with my child, as well as the child on the way when he/she is born.

Quite honestly, I am ammazed that someone can drive any more than I do, and be productive at all. However, it is rediculous to expect that everyone can always live closer to work. I am in the process of trying (I have only made this commute for 2 years), but there are very legitimate reasons for my situation as it is now. That all being said, it would make sense for companies, and my manager in particular, to push to allow more telecommuting. For crying out loud, I am a network engineer! And I can set up my remote setup myself, and would be willing to pay for the equipment to save the $400/month and hours of my life. some people say that it isn't effective, but I accomplished more for my previous employer in the time I was working from home for them while I was transitioning jobs. It is so easy to get work done with out the constant interruptions, distractions, meetings, and other crap that takes place in an office environment. And it is so nice to get that hug from a spouse or child the moment you step out of your hope office, than after the road rage inducing hours in traffic.

"However, it is rediculous to expect that everyone can always live closer to work."

The only reason why it was possible in the first place was incredibly cheap gasoline (cheaper than water or cola..), but it's not because something is cheap $-wise that it's no valuable (what else could be done with all that energy? what about all the externalized costs (pollution, global warming, peak oil, smog, etc)). Soon that situation will be corrected by peak oil, I suppose...

I can understand why someone would do this temporarily, but the man in the post above has been doing it for 17 years. That's just crazy beyond words. One person using so much energy, polluting so much, and for what? I certainly hope that you see your situation as temporary...

I agree 100% with you about telecommuting (I wrote something about it a while ago). The centralized work-space was necessary in the beginning of the industrial revolution, but now so many jobs don't require it... f.ex. I work from home and don't even own a car.

My first professional job landed me in a 32mi commute, avg 1.5 hours each way. I did it for 18 months. Nice job, nice people, hated the commute. I was getting headaches, gaining weight, and getting horribly grumpy.
The price of gas wasn't what I hated, it was all the misery in suburban Chicago traffic, and 3 hours I was losing per day, and not getting paid for.

I was so happy when the economy slumped, and they had to let me go! I soon got a job downtown, and was able to take the train. It took me about 35 minutes, but I was able to nap, or tune out, or use my laptop, or read - I devoured a magazine a day, or a novel a week!

A friend of mine was recently offered two jobs, one in the suburbs - an hour away, or downtown - an 8 minute bike ride. I told him that he should factor in the unpaid time, cost and frustration he would get with the suburban job, and even if the city job paid less, he would still be getting a better situation. He took the city job, and I know he's much happier than he would have been with the other .

"...How pathetic is that? I wonder what his poor wife thinks of his dedication?"

He stated that he loves his job and his family doesn't want to move, so the commute is his only option. He has a horse ranch and wouldn't think of leaving it.

I read about this before. I think the consensus was that if he is an engineer, he should be able come up with something better. Someone did the math, factored sleep and dinner, and it came to about 2 hours of free time, to spend with the family and personal hygiene per day. That's assuming his wife does all the housework and errands, and the kids are still awake that late. It comes down to "working hard for your family" vs. "spending time with your family". They both show that he cares. I'm sure he would like to spend more time with them, but you can't live without money, and a caring family understands that.

And since this is Treehugger, yeah... seems like a terrible waste of gas. We need to get some maglev trains or something going between cities and suburbs. A giant carpool, less waste, in theory anyways. They don't even have buses like they used to.

It would appear this guy has his work life balance all wrong and im surprised he's still married.

clicking on the link to the Midas site and reading about the competition it seems he's not the only one to be putting in stupid miles just to get to work! Interesting also that Midas dont consider motorbike, or public transport to be commuting! I understand the sort of business they're in but this competition serves only to promote gas guzzling!

If I had to do such commute, which I think is assanine

I'd have to go with a diesel plane.
http://www.flyingmag.com/article.asp?section_id=12&article_id=501&page_number=2

It actually might be the best possible solution. It would save a ton of time and would burn about the same amount if not less fuel.

I think Midas lost some points with the green community. I for one don't go there because of their rediculous prices, but now I wouldn't go even if I their prices were cheaper. (which probably won't happen) The best thing that could happen for this guy "in our perspective" is if he could take a train or another source of mass transportation.

As for the comment on how he wouldn't benifit from a hybrid, I beg to differ. I say this because the average highway mile for a prius is about 55 mpg. But I do agree that the hybrid might not be such a great car for so long a commute.

Oh and for the person who was glad to have been laid off due to the bad commute. Next time I suggest just going out and finding a different job earlier. If you were that happy to have been laid off, that just tells me the job wasn't worth the commute. That speaks for itself.

For those of you mentioning telecommuting as an option you might be interested in knowing that a lot of big tech companies are starting to move away from that if you can believe it. The reason is that if you are a system/network engineer and you can do your job from home then someone in India can do your job from there for 1/10 the salary. I work for a company that just changed their policy and this is the only logical reason for it. We have the vpn infrastructure in place and the price of gas is constantly going up but they just changed the rules and now telecommuting is a once a month deal instead of 2 to 3 days a week.

Most of these hybrids are reported to last about 100,000 miles. That wouldn't last this guy long. Of course, he could go through three times as many of them and cause more damage in the end between disposal of the batteries and the pollution caused by the nickel plants that are necessary to produce them. Or we could just pretend to feel good about driving "economically friendly" hybrid cars.

It would be nuts if he did that every working day, but for just 75 days a year, is that commute so terrible?

There are also (at least here in the UK) plenty of non-hybrid cars to choose from that get a decent milage: 55 mpg is not unusual for a family car these days. If he did diesel (ok I know that's unusual in the States but...) then he could use waste veg oil from the local "drive-thru"(!) during the warmer parts of the year.