Study: Americans cut back on driving only slightly when gas prices soar

Not for me. I kept my car in the garage for days -- and did a lot of walking -- when gas was over $3.00/gallon. This story says: "Research showing that use doesn't decline much as prices rise undercuts arguments for higher gas taxes. But gas tax advocates aren't ready to give up on the idea." (San Francisco Chronicle)

Comments

[bdub]

Gas is like food.No matter the cost,we have to buy it.They have us by the short hairs and they know it.Hi pnwgal.Hope you made it through the recent storms in your area o.k.

[boynamedsue]

Me: Honda CX500 40ish miles to the gallon. Perks Ability to use carpool lane, and lanesplit in stopped traffic.

Girlfriend: Prius, 40ish miles to the gallon. Perks, Also can use carpool lane.

[Amy Alkon]

I bought a hybrid in 2004 -- the first new car I've ever owned. It's a Honda Insight -- gets 66 or 67 mpg hwy., and only that because I have the automatic. People with the manual get, sometimes, 100 mpg. It's a pity that Detroit, in response to the oil crisis in the 70s, did nothing but create crappy econoboxes, leaving it to the Japanese to innovate. I'd love to buy an American car -- and I will, as soon as one of the American car companies comes up with something that even comes close to the quality and innovation of the Japanese.

America tends to be a very wasteful society. I use reusablebags.com at the grocery store, and try other measures, like taking only one napkin, instead of a stack, so not to unnecessarily use resources. It really doesn't take much effort or work to be mindful about polluting as little as possible, and leaving as small of a footprint as possible on the planet.

Additionally, I can't see using one more drop of gas than necessary, what with all the dead or maimed young soldiers' pictures I see in the paper.

[JD]

Screw these assholes and their gas tax. I don't even have a car I ride my Motorcycle as my only wheels, the wife has a car, but it'd small too. I get 50 mpg and get to enjoy my ride too. Taxes will not help the working folks, it'll just create more hardships so some intellectual over educated idiot can feel useful. The car companies want to sell cars, the market is asking for better fuel efficiency, so the car companies need to get off their asses and build what we need. The market will handle the issue without new taxes. I'm going to stop now before I REALLY get on a rant.
Later....

[boynamedsue]

"America tends to be a very wasteful society."

My new shoes soles were made out of recycled tires. Meaning the treds of the soles are actually tire treds. A hemp body, made overseas (but only hiring unionized labor, so the people making them were actually paid fairly)

recycling and fair trade rules.
http://adbusters.org/metas/corpo/blackspotshoes/

[Kristin]

The problem is, people have based their lives on gas prices being relatively inexpensive. So, when gas prices rise, they don't have the option to change much about the way they drive. Work is still the same distance away, as is the grocery store, church, Janie's dance lessons. The only way you could significantly alter how much gas people use, is if the price stayed high for many years in a row. Then, there would be a chance for people to decide to live/move closer to work, buy more fuel-efficient cars, figure out a carpool system that works, etc.

Homes and cars are big purchases. Those are only done on rare occasions (for most people). Additionally, people can't just change jobs on a whim to save gas. So having high gas prices for 6 or 9 months is not enough to force people to change their way of living and driving.

I live in the country. I still have to drive 20 minutes to get to the grocery store no matter what the cost of gas is. I work from home, so I can't carpool. The only thing I did differently was try my best to combine trips once or twice a month when I drove into a bigger town to do some shopping for something besides food. But that reallty didn't significantly impact how much gas I used on a weekly basis.

[Beyotch Knowles]

Amen, Kristin. I live 25 miles from my job and I hate my long commute. Of course I'd much rather live close enough to walk, but unfortunately, there are no jobs for me that are in walking distance. After being out of work for 4 or 5 months, when this job opened up, I snapped at it. I'm moving soon to an apartment that's a bit closer to my job, but I can't afford to live in the neighborhood in which I work (nor would I want to.) I didn't and couldn't change any of my habits when the price of gas went up. Man, I miss the 7 train! (The International Express!)

"Screw these assholes and their gas tax."

How then, would you recommend the government pays for silly "free" things like roads, bridges, highways, etc.?

[Nonchalant Savant]

Number one: I don't drive an SUV or large gas-guzzling vehicle. I drive a Ford Focus. It's not as good on mileage as a Japanese-made hybrid, but for my budget, it was the most efficient and affordable.

Two: I'd LOVE to own a hybrid. They're cool with ultra-slick technology, but every time I do the math - it simply doesn't fit my budget. They're more expensive to purchase, and the gas savings do NOT justify the higher price.

Three: Even at a price increase of one dollar a gallon, my out-of-pocket expense for gas has only risen aproximately $12 a week. Most people blow that much on ONE nice lunch. And what are the options? Stay home from work? Nope. Ride the bus? I could, but I still have to drive to the park-n-ride. Plus the commute takes 45 minutes LONGER (I live in a suburb north of Dallas) than my normal drive. That ends up to nearly 4 hours of wasted time commuting per week. Not to mention the cost of riding the bus. To save $12? Even when I factor in the price of a tank of gas for a week, gasoline would still have to rise a whole lot more to make that bus commute economical.

Of course, that's the entire point of the article. As long as we can remain productive and profitable, Americans will continue doing what works best for us.

[JD]

OK, anonymous asshole, I'll bite. BY USING THE TAX MONEY THEY ARE ALREADY GETTING! The article was about NEW gas taxes. If you'd bother to read you'd know that.

[MH]

As I read the article it's about raising taxes to restrict the amount of gas sold (or used), not paying for "silly "free" things like roads, bridges, highways, etc.?"

[Rob61]

I'm with you, Amy...I'll buy an American made vehicle when they are the best ones made....it's not the fault of the American worker...we all are aware that American management is greedy, manipulative, and short sighted...when a company loses money the management should receive no pay!!!

[Boynamedsue]

to add to JD. I know another place the government is spending money it didnt need to. its a four letter word starting with the letter I and ending with raq

[pnwgal]

Hey bdub. :-) Got stuck in my house for three days (we live on a steep hill), but we didn't lose our power, thank goodness!

That being said...I'm fortunate enough not to have to do alot of driving. I live 45 miles away from my job, but I can commute by bus, so the most driving I do in a week is 3 miles back and forth to the park and ride. My employer pays for my bus pass, so between not having to pay for gas, parking and wear and tear on my car, we save a bundle.

But no...our lifestyle didn't change much when gas was so expensive. About the only thing we changed is using the car that got the best gas mileage for errands and combining trips.

[Phranqlin]

I live fairly close to my job and either bike, take the bus or drive, depending on my schedule. But a lot of people don't have this many commuting options. My previous job, for instance, was on the other side of town in an area where public transportation was virtually non-existant, so I was forced to drive. I did set things up so that I could work at home two days a week, which helped both my wallet and my sanity. (I hate driving in heavy traffic!)

If gas prices rise a lot, I'll take the bus or bike to work more frequently. The car I have now gets gas milage but not as good as a hybrid, so I may switch to a hybrid when it dies.

[TomW]

The gas situation is serious and complicated and that means that Americans are not going to deal with it until it is too late. In the posts here you see the holier than thou people who do buy smart cars but have to throw in that they so much better than everyone else, or the other extreme that is that they will drive their SUVs if it costs 10 bucks a gallon and their kids can't eat. The answer is, as always, somewhere between the flaky left and the wacky right. Its not really a political issue, there has been no reasonable energy policy no matter who is in office. And you have bizarro world things that people cannot accept along with their political lifestyles such as Clinton did not sign the Kyoto agreement when he was in the White House and Bush has given the largest amount of research money to alternative fuels. How odd is that? The point is we have to stop playing monkey for politicians and pretending that because this one is a Dem he is better or because this one is a Repub he is more moral. People are in love with SUVs for no apparent reason as only people who live in snow areas or who might live on a dirt road really need them, the rest of us just want them because we buy into the marketing schemes. We demand gas guzzlers and the industry makes them for us. No demand, no SUVs. And yet you have soccer moms who want them because they think they are safer, well you can get them in 2WD and they are the same vehicle with much better MPG. The oil industry has incredible power, more than the Federal government because the Fed is just a subsidiary of big oil. They own the legislature, they own the White House no matter which party is there. Politicians sell out to oil and tell themselves that they can just do that little bad thing and it will help them do other good things. Ethanol and alternative fuels have been around for nearly five decades and nothing much has happened. Big oil and politicians have learned in the past year with all of the unexplained price hikes and flucuations, that the American public will just swallow it. Small business and in fact all of the economy had the ripple of expensive transportation costs and Exxon posted the highest profits ever and no one takes them to task for that. Not long after that was announced BP said they would have to shut down the pipes coming from Alaska for maintenance and their gas would go up a lot for "awhile" and that lasted until someone at the trough thought that might be too much and kill the golden goose and BP decided that the maintenance could wait for awhile. The lure of being able to raise the cost of a gallon by 60-70 cents means billions (a day) in windfall profits. Clearly that buys the two bit blow dried politicians we send to D.C. There is no one standing between the world's population and oil and thats just how that is. Pick up copies of "green" magazines like Outside, Bicycling, Backpacker, etc. and you will see every fourth page is for a Nissan Tundra, a Honda Ridgeline, A GMC Envoy. People who think they are cutting edge on these issues are really just shavings on the floor as big oil whittles us all away. We all need to be much smarter when it comes to oil and not buy into the various scams perpetrated upon us by our leaders and puny media. No need to say hey look at me I am better than you all, but a good time to say hey I did this and it works for me you should try it.

[Taz]

All I have to say to TomW is WOW you are one smart cookie, will you marry me ? (just joking I think)

[David J.]

I love how some people go from a fuel sipper to a truck or SUV and complain about the price of gas. What did you expect? Now, I just love big boaty sedans... and I'm a young adult who usually would buy a dinky econobox. Sorry, I'll save tons of money by not buying a dinky econobox with next to no features, that would cost me a fortune, and buy a nice, used (boaty) sedan owned by some elderly folk.

I actually don't drive all around, so I use less gas than your average person with an econobox. I've had my car 3 years now, and I've only driven it around 8,000 miles, if that!

A friend has a 2006 Focus, and it's, well, more "dated" than my 1996 Ford Taurus, which I got for a song in decent condition from some friends a few years back. I sat inside, and thought... if I paid over two grand for this car, I'd faint!

In the past, I drove a former-manager's Kia and I thought the car was going to fall apart while driving it. Not really because it was cheap feeling, but since it was so small, I thought everything was going to colpase on me!

Now, I can tell you my Ford Taurus doesn't get much more than 13MPG in the city... well I have a bad led-foot so that may be why. But I'm not too concerned about the price of gas, because hey as much as I love big boaty sedans, I don't see much reason to complain.