Soaring fuel prices put the brakes on summer driving
Gas prices have surged 2.9 percent in the past month and are a whopping 38 percent higher than a year ago. As of today, motorists are paying $4 per gallon. And that doesn’t just translate into more people carpooling, biking and walking.
The folks in Cocoa, Fla., are considering a four-day work week for city staff. Employees say it will help them save gas according to a water department worker, adding that some employees are carpooling and bicycling to reduce their commuting costs.
It’s not just government workers who are feeling the pinch of higher gas prices. Nine in 10 people in a new Associated Press-Yahoo News poll expect the ballooning costs to bite them financially over the next six months.
The trucking industry is being hit hard by the rising price of gas, too. The slump has seen 42,000 trucks, 2.1 percent of the U.S. fleet, taken off the road in the first three months of the year, according to Donald Broughton, who follows the trucking industry for Avondale Partners LLC, a Nashville, Tenn., investment bank.
Faced with a gasoline bill of more than $1,000 to fill each truck, Frank McEvoy parked eight of his 22 semi trailer rigs and let seven employees go two months ago, just before the price of diesel fuel spiked.
Even your pizza delivery service is being hit by higher fuel costs. Tips are dwindling in service industries as people dig into their pockets for gas funds.
“Tips have gone way down,” said Alana Chang, a seven-year waitress at Frank’s Roman Pizza on Tunnel Road in Asheville, NC. “Some people are just not tipping, and some are saying, ‘Sorry, I can’t get you this time, but I’ll try to get you next time.’”
It is safe to say that exorbitant gas prices affect all industries. When will we get a holiday from gas prices? Is gas tax relief in our future?
Republican National Committee spokesman Alex Conant doubts it.
Barack Obama’s argument that immediately reducing gas prices won’t help American commuters is shockingly naive and out of touch…Gas tax relief worked when Barack Obama voted for it in the Illinois legislature, and it would work nationally now.
So what’s going to happen with gas prices? Your guess is as good as ours.
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