Wednesday, May 16, 2007

"Record Gas Prices Fail to Alter Driving Habits"

That's one of the headlines of the day on msn.com this morning. My question is how exactly am I supposed to alter my driving habits? My daily routine consists of me driving the 13 miles to my job in the morning and then driving the 13 miles back to my house in the evening. Occasionally at lunch I'll run a few errands near my office so that might add a couple extra miles to my "useage" in a week but for the most part it stays pretty static.

What people don't seem to realize is that it doesn't matter how much gas, we as a country, use or don't use. Because our "useage" has nothing to do with pricing. How much money oil companies want to make governs how much we're all going to pay for the stuff. It doesn't matter if it's summer, when they raise prices because it's the "summer driving season" or if it's winter when supply is low because more needs to be diverted to make heating oil for all of us selfish assholes in the North who want to heat our homes.

All we have to do is look at what happened after Hurricane Katrina. That storm comes through, levels most of the oil platforms in the Gulf and gas prices shoot up before the lack of supply was even able to be felt...those prices were high but they weren't this high so what's going on now? Smells like greed to me...plain and simple.

So no, I won't be altering my driving habits any time soon and I'm glad I'm "flush" enough to absorb the expense because Lord knows I'm not giving up my magazines and my Starbucks Blueberry Muffins to the man.

1 comment:

Real Live Woman said...

I love some of the analysts on TV who say, "When you look at the price per gallon, gas is the same as a gallon of milk or Coke." Yeah, we'll I'm not buying 20 gallons of milk every week! That analogy makes absolutely no sense.