I’ve been listening to economic commentary about the rising prices over the summer. Besides the drop in SUV sales, the general public hasn’t been too upset over the prices so far. Polls have indicated that people aren’t changing their driving habits that much.
It’s been a grand debate as to when the prices would get to a point where people do start screaming. I heard a commentary recently claiming that they’ll climb past right $3/gallon without a whimper. When I heard it I generally agreed.
It seems we were wrong. What was today’s hot office topic?
“On my way to work I saw a gas station selling regular for $3.05 per gallon.” Saturday I filled up the Rav, it was $2.61.
Two separate conversations were overheard about changing driving habits “Maybe I can share the car with my wife, I’ll just take the bus home at night” “I should carpool with $co-worker, we live in the same neighborhood, it’s silly for both of us to drive in.”
If this is happening in my small office, it’s probably happening all over the place. I’d say we’ve hit the critical point, people really are going to start changing their habits if prices don’t come down soon.
*cheers*
Disclaimer: Don’t think my happiness over the change in habits is mindless happiness that doesn’t take into consideration the serious economic issues in industries nationwide because of this. And I’m not insensitive to the people who barely make ends meet and will be severely hurt by these rising prices. But it was inevitable, and I hope that this spike can hit the industry and government hard enough that they’ll wake up to the reality of how dangerous our dependence on a non-renewable natural resource is.