Sixteen Cents in Two Days

On Monday I bought gas for $4.21 at a local station that usually has some of the best prices around. It cost me $61 to fill my Explorer. On Wednesday afternoon the price at the same station was $4.37. Another station in the area had regular unleaded at $4.41. This is nuts.

Are you making changes in your driving because of these prices? I can't say that I'm driving any less, but I am driving a bit more efficiently. I've never had a lead foot when it came to accelerating from a stop, and now I'm even more careful with the gas pedal. I also find myself letting the car coast more than I used to. Why burn fuel when momentum or gravity can do the work for me?

I don't know that I'm going to slow down much on the freeway. Around here if you go slower than 75 you're a rolling roadblock and it's pretty unsettling to have people dodging around you and giving you dirty looks. Besides that, I can't believe there's that much gas savings going 65 rather than 75 (or 80). The savings can't be worth the aggravation.

Somehow we've got to get the fuel pricing situation back to a reasonable level. Oil prices are now starting to come down from their historic highs, but if it works as it always has in the past, when you've been paying nearly $4.50 a gallon suddenly $3.75 doesn't look so bad even though gas was never that high until just recently. The oil producers know that and can play us like a drum if they want to. I'm not sure how long the economy and fuel-dependent industries can continue to operate at those prices and still price their products at a level people will be willing to pay.