That's the word from MSNBC. I suppose that it has to do with that $100 a barrel stuff that is finally making it to the pump. The word is that pump prices should make it up from today's national average of $3.20 up to around $3.40 in a month or so.
Short term, park the Hummer in the driveway and drive the subcompact. Combine trips. Inflate your tires to match the specs. Stop stomping the gas when the light turns green, and start coasting to a stop. When you are on the interstate, go the speed limit. Speeding gets you there sooner, if you live, but your engine efficiency point is usually set around sixty mph, and higher speeds exaggerate your gas use. Do you have public transit in your area? Is it worth considering?
Long term, consider replacing a large, inefficient vehicle with a smaller one that will get over 30 mpg. If you have 22K and have a worn out car, consider a Prius. If your car is still doing okay, look forward to 2010, when the next generation of hybrids should hit the show rooms. Those cars will be "Plug in" hybrids, that will feature the ability to plug the battery into a wall outlet every night in order to get mileage that reaches or exceeds 100 mpg. Some will be from Japan, and some will be from Chevy, so you can be patriotic if you like.
One final word of advice: do not write your Congressman to beg for gasoline prices to be brought back down. The only thing that they could do short term would be to eliminate gas taxes, and that is actually very little of what you pay for your gallon of gas. Zero gas tax would still leave the price over $3, and eliminate funds for road maintenance. You can't drive without a road. Long term, the answer to this problem is to stop using so much gasoline for transportation. There is no way to use MORE gas, while paying LESS. Economics does not work that way, and most of the world supply of this liquid is no longer under the USA, including Alaska.
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Comments: 14
I like that!
it's a trade off.
Economists will tell you that we cannot drill our way out of this one.
As for the roads someone said to me that they would rather pay higher taxes rather than having a pot hole blow out a tire here in MN. Well poor road maintenance isn't the cause of the majority of potholes here it's a thing called "winter".
As for winter I can only hope :) As it is it'll be July before I thaw out.
And right now there is no other economically viable fuel alternative. Or economically viable transportation for the poor or middle class other than the traditional automobile.