Gasoline/diesel prices hit record highs

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With gas hitting record highs, drivers feeling squeezed

By ADAM SCHRECK, AP Business Writer2 hours, 13 minutes ago

Cabbies here complain their take-home pay is thinner than it used to be. Trucking companies across the country are making drivers slow down to conserve fuel. Filling station owners plead that really, really, the skyrocketing prices aren't their fault.

And the rest of us? With gas prices now averaging $3.50 a gallon nationwide, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service, more and more Americans who have to drive are weighing the need for each and every trip.

"To get to the doctors and all that, it's an awful lot of money," said Carol Licata, a 75-year-old retiree from Arnold, Pa., who said a larger portion of her fixed income is now going toward gas. "I don't drive that often, but have to take necessary trips ... and (gas) takes a big chunk out of our budget."

Some would-be drivers are considering less energy-dependent alternatives simply for money's sake.

In Los Angeles, for example, fiction writer Brian Edwards sold his gas-guzzling Ford truck and now relies on his skateboard or the bus to get around. Sharon Cooper of Chicago, meanwhile, said she is planning to buy a bicycle to use on her 2 1/2-mile commute to work.

And everyone, it seems, is more than willing to join in the griping.

"It's hell," said legal aide Zebib Yemane, who spent $5 on gas for her Chevy compact at a 76 station in downtown Los Angeles just so she could make it to a cheaper gas station east of the area.

"When going downhill, I used to step on the gas. Now I don't," said Yemane, who said she normally spends $80 a week on fuel and asks people for rides and takes the bus to save money.

"Bottom line, we can't afford it no more, man. It's too much," Bak Zoumane said as he filled up his yellow cab at a BP station in midtown New York. The West African immigrant said his next car will likely be a hybrid so he won't have to pay so much at the pump.

Gasoline prices typically rise in the spring as stations switch over to pricier summer-grade fuel and demand picks up as more travelers take to the road.

But this year prices are rising even faster than normal, experts say, because of the massive jump in benchmark crude prices, which spiked to a record $117.76 a barrel Monday before settling a record settlement price of $117.48 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, up 79 cents from the previous close. It was the sixth day in a row prices set new records.

Those soaring prices are putting added strain on refiners and filling-station operators, which are struggling to pass the higher feedstock costs onto consumers. So even as drivers pay more, retailers — the most public face of the oil business — are getting increasingly squeezed.

"The farther you get from the wellhead, the greater the misery," said Tom Kloza of the Oil Price Information Service in Wall, N.J. "There's a lot of stations across the country that are literally on the brink of bankruptcy."

Samer Katib, the manager of a Marathon station in Chicago, said business has fallen at least 30 percent this year because customers are cutting back on driving and only using their cars when absolutely necessary.

"It's just go to your work and go home," he said of people's driving habits these days, adding that customers no longer stop in for profit-fattening drinks like they used to. "They need all their money for gas," he said.

"I wish I could make gas prices cheaper," Katib added. "But if we do that, we cannot survive."

Other businesses are getting pinched as well.

Mitch Goldstone, who owns a photo-scanning shop in Irvine, Calif., said he began giving out gas cards Monday to encourage people to shop after noticing a sharp decline in customer traffic — something he attributed to soaring gas prices.

AAA figures show California has higher prices than anywhere in the country, with regular now selling for an average of $3.86 a gallon.

"It's a mess here," Goldstone said. "People just are not shopping and everyone's trying to figure out a way to get people back in their cars."

Diesel prices are rising even higher than gasoline, putting pressure on trucking and other shipping companies that use the fuel to transport goods around the country.

The American Trucking Associations on Monday said it will host a "fuel strategies workshop" in June to help fleet operators cope with soaring prices.

ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello said fuel has now surpassed labor as the trucking industry's biggest cost, prompting some companies to install devices that prevent drivers from speeding. Companies are also shelling out for auxiliary power units and offering bonuses to drivers who cut down on idling and operate their trucks more efficiently.

"Every little bit helps," he said.

Print Story: With gas hitting record highs, drivers feeling squeezed on Yahoo! News.

After going to visit my shorty in L.A. a few weeks back, I see that Californians get WTFPWNed as far as gas prices go. Here in my native Texas, the station down the street I put in my '98 Expedition is $3.37/gal, which is up 20 cents from Sunday when I last filled up. Out there, where my shorty makes a 120-mile round-trip between work and school, gasoline ranges anywhere from 3.72 to 4.05/gal!

Don't care what your political affiliation is - that shit is fucking debilitating. At 2.50 a gallon, I paid about 50 bucks to fill up; now I'm paying anywhere from 68-75 bucks to top off my tanks.

But this isn't a thread to necessarily bitch about gas prices, the question is: What do we do.

You got Clinton (perhaps Obama, though I remember him saying it explicitly) screeching that she's going to levy a windfall profit tax against the oil companies, but I don't think that's gonna help a bitch ass thing, since that tax will merely be passed onto the consumer like all other taxes.

Then of course, you have your greens who say we should partake in cleaner, more renewable sources of energy, which is all fine and dandy but nothing on the table is cost-effective for the mass population.

Then you have (at least in my view) more practical people who believe we should drill in places like ANWR, off the coast of California and Florida, and other places where we have domestic sources of oil.

Ultimately - I think we should do a combination of my second and third options. I see no problem in funding research into renewable energy but I just think it's silly as fuck for us not to tap our own sources.

What do you think? Toss our your ideas, debate, attack, defend, get to buckin' on niggas.

Get at me.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

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Fuck the whiners, make a new variable tax that solidifies the price of gas at a constant $7/gallon. Clearly, the only way to convince Americans to change their habits is to hit them where it counts.

This won't help a bitch ass thing and you know it. The political suicide argument aside, you will effectively create a massive amount of price hikes across the board. You liberals whine about helping the poor and middle class so much, but yet you propose shit like this that will literally create third world-like conditions. Good job.

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Why NP drives a giant SUV is beyond me at this point.

Because it's the only vehicle I have, obviously.

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Which is indicative that the SYSTEM rather than the idea is retarded.

Wait, I thought Democrats were all about.....y'know, democracy! It seems like you're advocating a system where Congress isn't actually acountable to the people who elect them to office, because how else would you change the system from it's retarded state to one you think makes sense?

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I'm not bitching about gasoline prices - it is what it is and if I want to move around, I'm gonna pay the cost.

Besides - I actually need a SUV. When I DJ parties or perform at shows, it helps to have the extra cargo space for equipment - plus my logo is on the vehicle, which in the rap game helps me out by making people think I'm a lot more famous than I actually am.

And you can say we don't need more oil, but you know that's not the case.

I'm all for alternative fuels, but that shit is not going to change overnight. In the meantime, let us use the resources we do have to alleviate the pressure while we research and try to make a transition gradually over time. I'm not against change, but I'm not all for trying to force change and fucking everything up in the process.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I'm for drilling wherever there is oil.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Well, if you're talking about ANWR - the drill site won't affect the surrounding ecosystem in any appreciable way.

If you're talking about other potential spots that may be underneath national forests and shit, even then - yeah, drill away.

I was speaking idiomatically.

He probably doesn't, Brady. All Arainach has revealed is that he wants an authoritarian government that decides for the people what's best for them. This whole illusion of being for liberty and freedom is just a facade.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?