I was a business major in college and a nerd for most of my life. This doesn’t mean anything really except that sometimes I have a tendency to think in dollars and cents. That’s what I’ve been doing lately with the cost of gasoline. Don’t get me wrong. I hate spending $4 a gallon on gas. That’s why I did this analysis.
Here are the numbers.
In May of 2007, in South Carolina we were paying around $2.80 per gallon for gasoline. That means if you were driving a car that got 30 mpg, you were paying $0.09 per mile that you traveled. If you were driving a car that got 20 mpg, you were paying $0.14 per mile that you traveled.
In May of 2008, it is predicted that we will hit $4.00 per gallon for gasoline. That means if you are driving a car that gets 30 mpg, you will pay $0.13 per mile that you travel. If you drive a car that gets 20 mpg, you will pay $0.20 per mile that you travel.
From May 2007 to May 2008, the cost of driving a mile has gone up by $0.06 for many drivers with SUVs and large cars. This means that you spend $6.00 more on 100 mile trip than you did this time last year.
To put this in more personal terms, I drive a 1999 Chevy Cavalier that on average gets around 30 mpg and I live about 100 miles away from my parents’ home in Pamplico. My cost per mile increased $0.04. It now costs me $8.00 more per trip to visit my family.
I think I read somewhere that the average person drives about 1000 miles per month (that’s what I drive). This means that the average person is spending about $60.00 more in gas a month than they did this time last year. I don’t know about you, but I spend way more than that on entertainment and other unnecessary stuff every month.
I think the real cost and yes the real benefit of $4.00 gas is psychological. People are now thinking about their consumption again. In the past decades, American society has begun to believe that bigger is better. We’ve built bigger houses and bigger cars as our families have gotten smaller. My grandparents raised nine kids in a one bathroom-three bedroom house. It was a tight squeeze, but they managed. We now have families raising one kid in a McMansion. To build the bigger houses, we’ve moved farther and farther away from where our jobs are located and created what is commonly called suburban sprawl. This means that we’re driving bigger gas-guzzling cars more miles.
We have to change and $4.00 gas illustrates that better than all preaching of the actors, politicians, scientists, and activists combined. A vehicle that gets 7 mpg is not a smart decision. A vehicle that gets 40 mpg or better is.
Articles on things that could be done now!!!
http://benelling.wordpress.com/2007/11/01/incredible-efficiency-and-lower-emissions-the-genius-of-jonathan-goodwin/
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/04/24/beck.oil.prices/index.html
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2005/11/b1157843.html
Why the heck aren't the car companies and the government doing these things now?
Rant completed. Back to my writing.
ConCarolinas Schedule
2 days ago
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1 comments:
Thanks for the link love! I agree with what you are saying, but I often wonder what it will REALLY take for people to significantly change their habits. Is $4 gas enough? I guess we'll see. However, the problem is that as prices get higher, lower income individuals become even more unevenly impacted..$4 gas isn't a big deal for someone making $250K a year, but as you point out, $8 more on a trip will make someone at minimum wage start to think.
Thought you might be interested in this, as well .
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