Gas May Finally Cost Too Much — for a few percent of drivers:
For 20 years now, county workers in Palm Beach County, Fla., have been counting cars with sensors at strategic points along its 4,000 miles of roads. Nearly every year traffic volume has climbed at least 2%. But in 2007 there was a slight decline in the number of vehicles on the roads. This year traffic is down 7.5% through March. “We’re seeing a very significant change,” says county engineer George Webb. “We’re having a good time speculating why.”It’s not just Palm Beach. Traffic levels are trending downward nationwide. Preliminary figures from the Federal Highway Administration show it falling 1.4% last year. Now, with nationwide gasoline prices having passed the inflation-adjusted record of $3.40 a gallon set back in 1981, the U.S. Energy Information Administration is predicting that gasoline consumption will actually fall 0.3% this year. That would be the first annual decline since 1991. Others believe the falloff in consumption is steeper than the government’s numbers show. “Our canaries out there tell us they are seeing demand drop much more considerably than the fraction the EIA is talking about,” says Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at Oil Price Information Service, a Gaithersburg (Md.) market research firm.
Is oil-guzzling America changing its ways? Some think so, though it’s worth noting the U.S. still consumes one-third of the world’s annual gasoline output.
I don’t think these stats say quite what the writer thinks they say:
Just look at the latest auto sales figures. Sales fell 8% overall during the first quarter of 2008, and those of gas-hungry SUVs and pickup trucks dropped off a cliff, down 27% and 14%, respectively.
I doubt auto sales dropped 8 percent because potential drivers gave up on the idea entirely.