The Right Stuff

I was driving home today and noticed a big, roadside electric sign on a local gas station that has normally one of the lowest prices in the area. The price read $281.9 per gallon.

It shocked me. I have seen prices rise, but the recent jump in the last few weeks of more than $0.20 per gallon smacked me into reality.

So I started calculating; what is the difference in my cost? Well, I get more than 25 miles per gallon on my old car, and I drive somewhere around 250 miles a week (numbers fudged to make calculations easier), so a price jump of $0.20 per gallon will cost me about another $2.00 per week. Of course it is worse for people, like Irene, who drive long distances to work (85 miles round trip five days per week); her increase will be around $3.40 per week.

The government in its new effort to reduce the national deficit has promised to raise the federal tax on gasoline, which will mean another increase. I suppose that people might trade in their “gas guzzlers,” combine errands, start watching their driving distances and habits and, maybe even carpool to work. Or, they might just go into denial.

I looked at a national map of gas prices. The lowest were in Colorado and Utah, followed by Texas, Oklahoma and South Carolina – whoops, that’s where I live. I guess I shouldn’t complain if I live in one of the bottom five. The top three are California, New York, Connecticut and Washington (state). There the gas is $3.10 – $3.25 (and more). Paying $0.45 per gallon more would cost me $4.50 more per tankful. Fifty weeks of that would cost an EXTRA $225, or a TOTAL of $1,625.

Well, let’s put that in perspective. $1600 per year is maybe a month’s rent on a house, or two months rent on a small apartment. It is roughly a quarter of the food expense for a family of four. It might be a year’s worth of an electric bill. And these are all necessities, not really in the cutting down category, although conservation of food and utilities could help.

In truth, the $1600 falls mostly into the convenience category, the same as the relatively new car with that big car payment we pay. It is in the same category as the vacation we take, whether for two weeks or a single night on the town.

I also looked at international prices, and I guess we should be happy we are not buying gasoline there. In England and Europe they are paying anywhere from $5.35 to $6.50 per gallon. That’s twice and more per gallon than we are paying here. And yet they survive, mostly by more use of public transportation.

The U.S. consumes 400 million gallons of gasoline PER DAY. One great reason is our dependence on personal vehicles (which is a reincarnation of the cowboy’s horse). With our own vehicle, we can come and go anywhere we want anytime we please. And this spirit of independence reaches back to the founding fathers.

So, will public transportation succeed in America anywhere outside of the large cities and their suburbs? Unlikely. Instead, I predict the personal vehicle will thrive, but hopefully become cheaper to operate, with new, more efficient power methods.