Even with high gas prices causing financial hardship for many Americans, most motorists still plan to stick to the roads at least until pump prices climb another dollar, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
The poll found that nearly six in 10 Americans say that near-record gasoline prices are a hardship, but only 11 percent said that soaring prices would curtail their driving habits in the coming weeks. Three in 10 said they might skip a summer road trip.
The average price that drivers said would compel them to significantly cut back on their driving was $4.38 a gallon. In the Western United States, where gasoline prices are typically higher, the average respondent said the price would have to hit $5.12 a gallon.
In fact, the federal Energy Information Administration reported Wednesday that gasoline consumption last week was up 2.6 percent from the same week a year earlier, slightly higher than the trend so far this year.
Oil companies and analysts have long debated where the tipping point is for gasoline – the price that would cause a significant drop in consumption or prompt motorists to opt for autos with better gasoline mileage.
A senior executive from one of the nation’s top five gasoline marketers said last month that his company’s estimate used to be $3 a gallon. With the nationwide price of unleaded regular 22 cents higher than that and little impact so far on gasoline consumption, the company’s forecasters have been working on a new estimate.
“People at the bottom end of the income scale are making other choices,” says Frank Verrastro, senior energy associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former executive at a big independent oil-refining company. “The ones with discretionary income are upset but are buying the gasoline along with their lattes.”
The poll shows that the 44 percent run-up in pump prices since January has left Americans in general unhappy and four in 10 of them angry.
“It goes back to the days when the robber barons were around,” said Dave Grafton, a retired Baltimore math teacher.
But Grafton said he and his wife still plan to drive to Maine at the end of the summer.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” he said.
If gasoline prices top $4 a gallon, he said, he will reconsider.
The Post-ABC News poll was conducted by telephone May 17-21 among a random national sample of 1,007 adults. Results from the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.
The surprisingly resilient consumption of gasoline is explained by two factors.
First, though prices are just shy of the modern inflation-adjusted peak set in March 1981, Americans’ incomes have risen over the past quarter-century.
Second, Americans regard most of their driving as essential, not discretionary. With the development of suburbs and exurbs, people need cars for almost every outing.
BY THE NUMBERS
11%
Americans who say they will alter driving habits because of rising gasoline prices, a poll finds
43%
People who say they are cutting spending elsewhere to pay for gas
3.8%
Portion of the U.S. household budget for gasoline and oil in 2006
5%
Portion of the U.S. household budget for gasoline and oil in 1981
