Many Americans are cutting back on everyday expenses as gas prices soar due to President Donald Trump’s war in Iran, now approaching the 10-week mark. About 44 percent of Americans said they’re driving less due to high gas prices, while 42 percent said they’ve slashed household expenses, according to a Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll. In addition, the poll revealed that 34 percent have altered travel or vacation plans. Americans are changing their behaviors as national average gas prices hit $4.43 per gallon Saturday, according to the AAA motor club. This time last year, the national average was just $3.15 per gallon. Patrick de Haan, a petroleum analyst for GasBuddy, said Saturday’s average price marked a sobering new record. “The national average price of gasoline has never been higher on the second day in May than it is today,” he wrote on X.
Because of the inflation, the wife and I planned that we would do in state road trips for spring through fall because we really couldn’t afford anything more fancy but with a Miata I thought that would be a fun compromise. Gas prices shut that all down. I thought how can I go even cheaper than that ? Ok this year is patio cookout and staycation. Sure, look at the price of food! That brings us back to inflation. This year is the year of laying low and eating poor. Puzzles are still cheap… Sigh.
Cutting the motor vehicles out entirely is such an insanely massive savings.
Yes, but realistically most Americans do not live in a place where that is possible.
Doubt.
Well doubt all you want buy it’s true. That’s not hard information to learn if you put in the absolute minimum effort by the way.
I have put more far more than minimum effort into living as car-free as possible. What I have learned is that, no, it is not easy in the US. But it is possible, virtually everyone I’ve seen say that it’s impossible have really just not even bothered trying. Changing habits is hard, and this capitalistic hellscape makes everything that much harder, but no amount of excuses is going to bring gas prices down. Every cent spent on motor vehicles only goes to the lobbyists and city planners who make this paved deterraforming project that much more intractable.
your doubt is incorrect. heck i see a lot of people walking well over the mile to the local grocery store- more than ever. america is not public transportation friendly.
A mile is not a lot.
well over means well over. and that’s each way. and for some folks 2000 feet is a lot let alone 5280.
Cars are not the only form of transportation with accessibility in mind.
But what there is far far more of is people whose health is in dangerous territory, in part, because they are too sedentary, which is something owed in large part to the advent of industrialism including the rise of motor vehicle transportation.
If you never bike, 5280 ft feels like a lot. If you bike at least 3 days a week for even just two weeks, 5280 ft is already not even a warm up.
so your solution to the current problem, caused by capitalism, is (and let me make sure I understand this) - to convince people to exercise more.
the exercise thing solves other issues, sure. but the problem here is not working class people and bootstraps. it’s an entire subspecies of human, numbering in the thousands, that are monsters.
My brother drives for almost 2 hours to get to his job. And it is not that uncommon
That’s a really dumb thing for your brother to do.
It’s a well paying job with good bennifits. Not sure what else to tell you.
I live in the SF Bay Area which is one of the better places in the US for public transportation and it still sucks here. It’s a 15 minute walk to Caltrain from my house but if I wanted to go to work via public transportation (which is Southeast from me) I’d have to go North about 30 minutes on Caltrain to the Millbrae station and transfer to BART, continue going North through San Francisco, across the Bay to Oakland, then finally South to work, then walk another 40 minutes or so. Google says it would take over 2.5 hours. No, there aren’t any convenient busses. Driving takes 30-40 minutes and they have EV charging at work. It’s a no-brainer in my case.
Sounds like you need a job closer to home, or a home closer to job.
I love the city I live in and I love my job (so far). I’m going to think about this for a while, I’m hoping my current place is my last rental, we’ll see.
If I could figure out how to do that I would. My daily commute is 1 hour 😭
In the same way that using degoogled Android usually requires you to get a different compatible phone, and loss of certain apps requires you to live your life a bit differently; the car-free lifestyle also take some pre-planning, and sometimes large changes in your life.
If you don’t think it’s worth it, that’s your choice. But car-centric lifestyles will get increasingly hard to sustain.
You are not actually trying to compare fiddle fucking with your phone for a few hours to be just as easy to just giving up a car. I Wana see you ride the bus with a weeks groceries for a family of 5.
Don’t do groceries once a week, live in walking distance of a small grocer. But that requires them to exist, and mega corps are killing them all.
I didn’t say it was as easy. I was illustrating that there are parallels - they are both things that you need to plan your life around. If your job forces you to drive 60+ miles every day, you can interpret that as most people do, by saying that makes a car free lifestyle not feasible. Or you can recognize that wasting all that time and money on the road and your car is a fucking stupid thing to waste your life doing, and start using some of your free time to either start looking for a job closer to home, or a home closer to your job.
Oh, and I used to make 45 minute bike commutes to my 10 hour per day job in a rural small town. And still managed to consistently get groceries for a household of 5. You don’t know what’s doable unless you actually try.
There’s only so many remote jobs available, the entire service economy requires workers who often can’t afford to live near their jobs. So unless your “just restructure your entire life” plan includes a comprehensive guide to change the nation’s economy fuck off with that bootstrap shit.
Are you really finding jobs that pay so much better that it’s worth the insane costs of cars, their maintenance, insurance, gas and oil?
My annual costs fall well short of “insane” and certainly outweigh the time loss if I relied solely on public transit, not to mention the flexibility and social social life hits.
My city is literally a shrine to a car. The city planners designed it like a wheel.
Sounds like hell.
And huge chunks of them will still vote for whoever the GOP oozes out of the orphan crushing machine next.
but 40% think he’s doing a great job.
11% of the population isn’t allowed to join the military due to being … too dumb. They can still vote, though.
Remember, 100 IQ is the AVERAGE, half of people are under 100 IQ.
are you saying stupid people should not vote or that stupid people are easy to manipulate?
Some of the population is very easy to manipulate. Taking their right to vote is wrong.
Its just a big thing to contend with. “We got a lot of dumb*ss motherf*ckers around here.” - George Carlin
Maga: Ya but do the blacks have it worse?
I get trigger with these titles, 1/3 of USA people voted for trump, it is USA/Israel and Iran war. Calling it Trump war, making him the problem is misleading.
Worst case they should call it Republican war.
In the US, public transportation has been deliberately held back and kept low-quality, in order to keep us dependent on driving. And as an extra added bonus, the poors, the disabled, those who have to depend on substandard bus transit, are in the permanent underclass.
Now we see the endgame. Make the underclass even bigger. Make Frank Freeway work just to pay for his hour-plus commute.
So much winning
hell you have to
Cut out driving your car. White collar job? Demand WFH. Blue collar job? “Sorry boss man, you don’t pay me enough that I can afford to work today.”
I have been driving less because of the gas prices… But that’s because my wife keeps stealing my fake Mustang for her errands, since it is too expensive to drive her gas-guzzer Honda Civic.
Mach-E? Lol.
If this means not getting shit Starbucks 3x a day I’m on board, ironically.
For now, we have the funds to live and purchase things the same as we have in the past but are choosing not to. I personally am avoiding purchasing from large retailers as much as possible simply because I refuse to support this administration. I avoid companies that have supported or support Trump in any way. While our spending habits have changed, it isn’t solely because of gas prices. But it does suck that all my cars require premium gas, so I’m also driving as little as possible right now.
And yet they would still vote for the orange turd
Well yah, still ain’t great yet…
Never go full r tard.
Sorry for those of you I’ve offended for this tropic thunder quote.
His oppoment had a funny laugh, and it was enough for some enlightened people to sit it out.
Couldn’t win against a well known rapist, racist, bankrupt, and a pedophile.
That wasn’t an opponent, it was pathetic attempt at even trying.
If you’re against a dumpster fire of a persom, and the dumpster fire wins, i don’t think whining about the “voters” works. But keep doing you, i hope she sees this. 🤞
And this here is why Americans deserve the fucking we’re getting.
Yall should stop acting like the other option would be any different.
You should probably get a brain
Go ahead and fuck all the way off with this obviously false statement.
That would be true if it was a case of party in federal power changes, but the national (and international) policies remain the same
You know I didn’t think too much about the daily expense of gas since we drive relatively fuel efficient cars, but I looked up the mpg for some of the trucks and stuff near me and… How the fuck do people commute with mpgs as low as 12, sometimes?
Like, you shouldn’t commute over an hour anyway, but at 60 miles one way, some cars burn 5 fucking gallons. This has gotta be wrecking his truck driving supporters.
I live in central TN. I’m a Miata guy and the cost is hurting my wallet but almost every other vehicle is a monster lifted truck with oversized tires etc. I have no idea how those guys with truck payments can afford gas.
You can really stretch the monthly payments with 7 year loans, nevermind that in the long term you overpay by a hideous margin.
I’m pretty sure Biden did the fuel prices, that’s what the sticker on the pump said at least.
-His truck driving supporters, probably.
I’m a gearhead so my vehicles aren’t all efficient, and I just see higher fuel prices as the cost of my hobby going up, which isn’t good, but being a gearhead was already expensive. I’m sure these guys in oversized trucks feel feel similar.
That said, I also like cycling, have an electric skateboard, and use public transit when it makes sense, and I work from home, so the fuel prices don’t really affect me as much as some. Now, if I had a 120 mile round-trip commute I’d
kmsget an EV or plugin hybrid or ride my motorcycle, only driving my fun cars on occasion.A couple of years ago I got to see a guy shoehorn his person Ford F650 into a Starbucks parking lot. He was so proud of his massive waste of resources that he used daily for commuting and errands. It was utterly sickening with ow much he was excited to talk about how much he was wasting to “stick it to those horrible environmentalists”.
The Ford F650 is generally reported to get about 6.75 mpg. Gas prices up? Fuck that asshole. He deserves it.
jesus put that oil in the ground for us to burn.
Well, the climate activists and net-zero army should be really excited now that gas prices are getting higher. No one would be able to afford it and we would get the zero-emissions goals they truly crave.
Gas will have to be high for a long time to make a difference with EVs here, especially with the huge level of protectionism. Since legacy automakers pretty much gave up on EVs and most new technology companies are blocked, pretty much all we have are Tesla and Hyundai/Kia. Hopefully Rivian can make it over the humo of mass production but you can’t really call them more than a niche so far
It’s nice to have options but Rivian trucks are still gigantic. I want an electric pickup the same size as one of those little Nissans in the 80.
It’s actually making a serious (at least short term) shift on EV sales in Germany. They’re spiking hard right now.
Germany also legalized balcony based solar panels for grid connections. People are excited about lower energy bills, and even directly charging their own cars from their own solar panels.
All of the data shows that renewables are winning the economics in the market compared to carbon-based options. We just need to keep pushing so the rich people let us move faster.
In my red hat area, guys buy big fancy gas hog trucks mostly for show and to haul beer and dog food. They would never dream of hauling firewood in them - they have trailers for that.
I’ve seen people drive their daily commute with empty trailers still attached because they’re too lazy to unhitch them. Then when they do unhitch them they always leave the hitch still attached.
Psychopath society.
he could walk up and pop all their tires and they would still blame Joe Biden and vote for trump again.
they probably just blame biden to make themselves feel better about their decisions
Somehow it’s Obama’s fault.
Last time I had to drive a somewhat far away job for me. It was 30 miles. I had a not worse but not best mpg vehicle and had to fill up every week. I think that is fairly typical. trucks like that Im not sure you could get away with only twice a week. I mean maybe because I think the tanks are bigger but man then each fillup must be huge.
The fuck. My dinkie little 25 year old Tacoma can go for about 230 miles on a full tank, that’s with it struggling up hill. Why would you want one of these trucks unless you wanted just the body to do an engine swap and fully customize but still.
