The national average hit $4.43 a gallon, up 16 cents in a week and more than a dollar higher than a year ago, with crude parked near $100 on Strait of Hormuz volatility. One camp says this is the moment to carpool, cut the commute and buy the smaller car; the other says Americans shouldn’t have to rearrange their lives around a price spike they didn’t cause. Which are you?
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Add your commentNobody told you to buy a truck you needed three ladders to climb into. Some of us made responsible vehicle choices and we're fine.
I sold my Tahoe in 2019 and bought a Civic. People called me boring. Those people are paying $130 to fill up right now and I am not.
"Just buy a smaller car" is the "just eat less avocado toast" of 2024. Completely detached from how most people's lives actually work.
Carpool? My commute is 6 minutes. I'd spend more time arranging it than it would save.
The people saying "Europeans pay more" need to be permanently banned from this conversation until they also propose building the rail network, redesigning the cities, and subsidizing the transit systems that make European gas prices tolerable. You can't cite the outcome without wanting the inputs.
I bought a hybrid three years ago when everyone told me it was a waste of money and a gimmick. Getting 48 mpg right now. I am choosing not to be smug about this. I am failing at not being smug about this.
I filled up yesterday and genuinely stood there for a second wondering if I should just call in sick and go home. $87 for a half-tank. This isn't sustainable.
Nobody is going to change how they drive because of a price spike. They're going to absorb it and be quietly furious and then buy an F-150 when the price drops again. We've watched this exact movie before.
I work in oil and gas and I'll tell you flat out the Hormuz volatility story is real but it's also convenient cover for margins that were already climbing before the situation escalated. Both things can be true.
What bothers me most is the helplessness of it. I didn't cause the Hormuz situation. I didn't design American suburbs so everything is 20 miles apart. I didn't kill public transit funding. And yet I'm the one being told to just adapt. It's tiring.
I'm a long-haul trucker and I genuinely don't know how much longer small operators like me stay in business. This isn't abstract. Every spike like this takes money directly out of whether my kids eat name-brand or store-brand.
I did actually change how I drive — combined errands into one trip, dropped one discretionary trip a week, started coasting more on downhills. Saved maybe $18 last month. Not nothing, but not exactly freedom either.
I drive a 2011 Honda Fit with 160k miles on it and I genuinely feel like a monk who has achieved enlightenment every time one of these threads comes up.
Honestly I changed nothing. Filled up, grumbled, drove the same route I always drive. That's America.
The guy who said nothing ever permanently changes — the 2008 spike permanently shifted a measurable slice of buyers toward fuel efficiency for years. It doesn't change everyone but it changes some, and some is not nothing.
The comment saying SUV sales were record high is a fair point and I say that as someone who bought an SUV last year. I knew what I was doing. I'm not going to pretend the math is someone else's fault entirely.
the "just buy a smaller car" crowd has clearly never had to haul a family of five plus a dog plus camping gear across Wyoming
I'm 23, don't own a car, take the bus, and I still feel this because everything that gets shipped anywhere costs more when diesel goes up. Groceries, packages, everything. There's no escaping it even without a gas tank.
I did that math when prices hit $3.80. At my mileage the difference between my current car and a hybrid was about $1,400 a year in fuel. A hybrid costs me $4,000 more upfront minimum after all costs. You break even in under three years if prices hold. They won't hold. But they also might not drop as low as before. It's genuinely a close call.
If you disagree that this is a demand problem as much as a supply problem, explain how you square that with the fact that SUV sales hit a record high last year while everyone was already complaining about gas prices
The helplessness comment is real and worth sitting with. But adaptation and political anger aren't mutually exclusive — you can do both. Waiting until the structural problem is fixed to start saving money is just punishing yourself.
I'm a retired mechanic. I've watched people buy small cheap cars to "save on gas" and then spend twice the savings on repairs because they bought something unreliable. The math on vehicle switches is never as clean as people assume.
@the person who said Europeans pay more — Europeans also have trains. Actual trains. That go places.
The "Europeans survive on $9 gas" comment is doing a lot of heavy lifting while ignoring that European median wages in urban centers are also structured around not needing a car. Cherry-picking half the equation.
That last comment should be pinned at the top of every one of these threads forever honestly
The speed question is a good one actually. Futures markets price in anticipated supply risk immediately, and that flows downstream to the pump within days even before a single barrel is actually affected. It's a feature of how commodity markets work, not manipulation — though manipulation is also a separate real thing.
same as the camping gear person — I have a wheelchair accessible van. There is no "smaller option" for me. This conversation always forgets people like me exist.
genuinely asking — if the volatility is in the Strait of Hormuz, why does my gas station in Des Moines see it within a week? Serious question, the speed always baffles me
I just drove past three gas stations on my way home to see if this was real and yes, $4.47 here in Phoenix. I changed nothing. I probably won't. But I thought about it harder than I ever have before, and maybe that's how these things actually start.
My grandmother drove a big Buick until she was 82 and she never complained once about gas. People used to just absorb these things and move on.
I started biking to work two weeks ago. Not because of gas, I just wanted to, but the timing is good. It takes me 22 minutes longer each way and I have lost four pounds. I'm not telling anyone to do this. Just reporting.
change how i drive lol i live 34 miles from the nearest grocery store what exactly is my option here
my dad always said the gas price panic cycles every few years and nothing ever permanently changes and so far he's been right every single time
the bike commuter lost FOUR POUNDS and is "not telling anyone to do this" — brother you are absolutely telling everyone to do this and we see you
carpooling sounds great until you realize my coworkers and I have three different shift start times and live in four different zip codes
ok but has anyone actually done the math on what $4.43 means annually versus the cost of a different car payment and insurance bump? because i suspect the numbers are closer than people think
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