High Gas Prices - What will it take to get Americans' Attention?

For the first time in 30 years, Americans are driving less. Now that the average gas price is $3.65 a gallon, Americans are said to drive one mile less per day, on average.

It has been more than 30 years since Americans have cut back on their excessive driving, and really considered gas to be a large household expense.

According to a recent CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, more than half of Americans are "economizing in order to compensate for the increase in gas prices over the past year," according to gallup.com.

But, just as with many other economy-driven decisions, it is not the upper class who are making sacrifices, it is those individuals who make less than $50,000 a year.

In that same poll, 57% of respondents said they would consider purchasing a hybrid vehicle. Companies such as Ford, now offers 0% financing on the Escape, after less-than-stellar sales figures (see yesterdays blog for more on the Escape and how it helps save on gas).

To calculate your commute, visit northjersey.com's gas mileage calculator, which also features the average gas price of the day.

So I thought I would try this. I went to fueleconomy.gov and looked up my 2005 Toyota Corolla. Here are my stats:

Fuel Type Regular

MPG (city) 28

MPG (highway) 37

MPG (combined) 31

Then my fuel economics:

Cost to Drive 25 Miles $2.73

Fuel to Drive 25 Miles 0.81 gal

Cost of a Fill-up $40.27

Miles on a Tank 368 miles

Tank Size 13.2 gal

Annual Fuel Cost $1642

These figures look kinda scary, even for my small car with pretty decent gas mileage.

So then I went back to the gas calculator. It says that the estimated average miles driven per day is 29; the estimated average mpg for cars is 22.9 and for SUVs is 16.2.

I put in that I drive about 10 miles per day, and my car get 28 mpg (city, not highway). If I were to pay today's average of $3.64, it would cost me $1.30 to drive 10 miles, but if it went up to $4 a gallon, as it probably will, my commute would cost $1.42 a gallon.

So now this got me to thinking. I have a car with good gas mileage and I don't drive a lot, but what about people who have to drive 20 miles to work, which I was doing recently before I quit my job. Now that would be 40 miles round trip, but most people do not have gas mileage this good. So when I put in 40 miles driven in a given day, with a car with the average of 22.9 mpg, the cost of the commute would cost $6.36 today, but $6.98 when gas goes up to $4 a gallon.

Today's average gas price in New Jersey is $3.64, while the national average is $3.77. Last year at this time, the average NJ cost was $2.90, while the national price was $3.10. This goes to show that prices have risen $.74 in the last year in New Jersey.

So now I ask, with gas this high at $120 a barrel, what will people do once it reaches $200 a barrel? What will it take for people to take fuel economy seriously? Maybe I should just look into a bus pass and skip all this drama.