CFCE Blog

Summer Driving Season

By Loren Kaye
Posted 7/09/2007

Gasoline prices in California were an eye-popping $3.21-a-gallon for the July 4 holiday week.  But this doesn't mean that rational drivers have eliminated their summer holiday trips.  How do high gas prices translate to driving expenses?

The average price of all grades of gasoline last week in California topped out at $3.21 a gallon, leading to the predictable speculation that Mom and Dad and the kids would leave the Ford Expedition in the driveway and stuff all the camping gear into the Prius ... or forego the visit to Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon altogether for something closer to home.

But how much are high gasoline prices changing the behavior of rational vacationers this summer?  The California State Automobile Association estimates that nearly 4.6 million Californians would take vacation travel this week - the busiest travel week of the summer - an increase of about one percent over last year.  Not even an inconveniently-timed July 4th holiday, falling on a Wednesday this year, would deter ardent vacation drivers.

Why haven't high gasoline prices deterred vacation drivers?  Quite simply because the high per-gallon prices posted at the corner gas station don't translate into major vacation expenses.

For example, a thousand-mile vacation journey would consume just over fifty-five gallons of gasoline in a car getting eighteen miles-a-gallon, so Mom and Dad put about $177 on the gasoline credit card for their trip last week.  But compared to a year ago, they actually spent $1.61 less in fuel costs, and from two years ago, they spent under forty dollars more on gasoline last week - for a thousand mile trip.

Adjusting for inflation, the real increase in gasoline prices is even less apparent.  The family's cost of fuel increased by $13.71 from two years ago, and by less than $25 from six years ago.

Clearly, when deciding whether to pack up the family for a road trip this year, the price of gasoline is far less a financial factor than the new portable DVD player to occupy Timmy and Madison from setting the back seat afire.

Comments There are 0 comments

Add Comment
Note: Your comment is important to us. The CFCE website does not force you to logon to add a comment; therefore, to protect the integrity of our website, we do have an approval process. Your comment may not be visible immediately.
Screen Name
Comment (500 characters max.)