Now that the average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline has finally hit the $4 mark, I figured it would be a good time to reflect on how far our perspective regarding gas prices has changed over the last year or so.
On May 30 of last year, I asked Daily Fuel Economy Tip readers to predict where they thought gas prices would be in one year. Just less than half of the respondents – 49% to be exact – said that gas prices would be at or above $4 a gallon. The remaining 51% predicted prices would be less than $4 a gallon. At the time of the poll, the national average gas price was roughly $3.10 per gallon.
Then in late December of last year, again, I asked if Daily Fuel Economy Tip readers expected gas prices to climb above $4 per gallon during 2008. Not surprisingly, this time, the percentage of respondents expecting $4 gas climbed. In fact, 71% of respondents said they expected $4 gas, and an additional 11% stated they were unsure if gas prices would break the $4 mark. At the time of that poll, the national average gas price was roughly $3 a gallon.
Finally, in early March of this year, as the price of gas was on the verge of shattering its all-time high, I again asked Daily Fuel Economy Tip readers how certain they were that 2008 would see $4 gas. The results were very much in line with the December poll with 51% of respondents saying they were 100% certain of $4 gas, while an additional 31% of respondents said $4 gas was likely. At the time of this poll, the national average price was roughly $3.20 per gallon.
So, here we are now, a week into June 2008 and we’ve finally crossed the $4 mark and “validated” the beliefs of those of us who saw this coming nearly a year ago.
Inevitably, the question will now turn to “when do you expect to see $5 gasoline?” Unfortunately, it’ll probably happen a lot sooner than any of us expect or would like.
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Why aren’t you talking about why Democrats are refusing to allow new drilling explorations so that we move away from being dependent on foreign oil? We have enough – untapped – oil and natural gas to fuel our economy for 150+ years. But liberals are preventing oil companies from drilling in regions they have deemed as “protected”. Meanwhile, places like Dubai, Saudi Arabia, are spending our billions of dollars on 7-star luxury hotels, casinos, and indoor ski resorts. Seriously – talk about it.
Drilling for more oil is not the long-term solution. The long-term solution is getting the hell off of fossil fuels. At some point they’re going to run out. On top of that, much of the bottle neck regarding supplies is due to the lack of refining capacity, not due to the lack of crude inventories. I do think the policy makers and large oil corporations need to share blame for the fact that a new refinery has not been built in the U.S. since the 1970s.
Clean, sustainable and renewable energy sources are what we should be focusing on, not trying to find the next gusher.
I agree with what Brian says. Rather than focus on solving the problems surrounging traditional fuel, people just point their attention at this or that oil company and wait for their next oil strike. We need to get rid of fuel consuming behemoths and move on to more economical means of getting around. People will end up like this poor sap and not be able to get rid of their SUV’s
http://ihatemyhummer.com/
Yeah, it is pretty ridiculous that we can’t get another refinery built. I blame a lot of it on congress listening to environmentalists. They’re holding us back, and they really shouldn’t have the power to do that!
I agree with Chris. How dare we make foreign greedy oil companies rich when we have plenty of greedy oil companies here at home. Lets continue to allow them to supress research into alterate fuels while allowing them to drill anywhere with no fear of reprisal for accidents.
Whatever we do lets not talk about how Republicans wanted to invade Iraq claiming that it would lead to lower gas prices.
We need to start to not rely on foreign oil. That could mean developing alternative energy sources, or just drilling for oil here, and now.