OMG. Have you filled up your gas tank this past week? As someone who virtually ‘drives for a living’ I’m not a happy consumer at the pump. What’s causing these hellish gas prices? Primarily, GREED.  We have enough gas for the vehicles in this country in reserves, but suppliers cut way back during COVID because simply, we weren’t going anywhere. Now, EVERYONE wants to travel, and demand is not keeping up with supply. When that happens, producers can gouge us. Do NOT think Russia is responsible for the shortages. It’s our own oil drillers, and refineries that are really the root cause of our shortages right now.

There’re some great tips from www.energy.gov on how to save on gas, which will also help reduce pollution and improve energy security. Here they are:

-minimize idling your car. In NYC you can be fined $400 for idling your truck for more than 3 minutes and there’s a huge industry of people who video the truck, send in the relevant info and get @$90 for reporting the offenders. We need that here!

-avoid aggressive driving for many reasons. Speeding, rapid acceleration and hard braking can lower your highway gas mileage by 15-30% and city mileage by 10-40%.

-avoid driving at high speeds. ABOVE 50, mph gas mileage drops rapidly for every 5 mph, which equals about $.30 per gallon of gasoline.

-those fancy roof racks cause drag, decreasing fuel economy. Try and put your stuff IN the car.

-try and work from home more. Use public transit, carpool, etc.  Check out www.rideutah.com

-use the right grade of motor oil for your car. Using a different grade can lower you mileage by 1-2%

-make sure your tires are inflated to the right pressure. If you can’t read your tire it might be on a sticker on the driver’s side door jam.

The bottom line for best gas mileage is to drive more efficiently, keep your car in shape, buy a more efficient vehicle if you can afford it.  We’ll be moving into warmer weather and known that running your car’s air conditioning is the main contributor to reduced fuel economy during the dog days (hot) summer-even more so on hybrids, plug-in hybrids and electric (EV) vehicles.  The down side is to think opening all the car windows instead of using AC might help but that just causes wind resistance and lowers fuel economy. It will work however, if you lower your windows driving at city speeds and not on the freeway.

Gas prices in Utah are somewhere between $4.25-$4.50 right now. For the first time in 70 years the U.S. is able to produce as much crude oil and gas as we consume, but a lack of pipelines and refineries is hindering gas prices to come down anytime soon. As summer approaches people will be hitting the road or flying to vacation destinations. You might want to book your flight for that end of summer of early fall trip now rather than later because airline tickets are going up just as fast due to airline fuel supply chain problems.