Cheap Gas: Good or Bad?

You totally missed the fact that we can now jump in our off road vehicles and go bogging! Oh, and what about racing to the red light in our hummers? And the best of all? Sunday driving is back on the plate!!!!

Alright!!!

On a serious note, I do hope that people realize that prices will not stay low, and learned a lesson from the high prices that the world experienced just a couple months ago. With fuel prices now being lower, it may help the world economy to recover. This could lead to (but probably won't) more emphasis being put on renewable energies to help us weather the next price spike storm. Again, I doubt it, but you can't blame a guy for hoping.

Sorry, however your #1 for bad things is a bit bogus. The relationship between cheap gas and automobile crash fatalities is spurious. Cheap gas does not explain more crash fatalities. It may, however, explain more miles/time driven per vehicle; which likely explains the increase in the number of fatalities.

I understand these are subtle differences, however the difference is significant. It would be like reading the headline "Swimming Pools the #1 Cause for Child Fatalities at Home" when in fact the cause is kids being left unsupervised.

I'll bite and try a few for the good list:
-Less pressure to develop oil sands.
-Gas tax increase becomes slightly politically plausible.
-It's partly a result of people starting to conserve, so it's a sign of something good even if it isn't good in and of itself.
-In theory, at least, people could take the money they set aside to pay their fuel bills and invest in efficiency, whether that's insulation, better vehicles, etc.

$4 gas didn't make me drive less, so $2 gas won't make me drive more.

I have many coworkers who started biking and commuting by train due to gas, and none have quit due to $2 gas. how long will they continue to keep it up? The bike rider says he will never go back to driving!

In some ways the gas price reductions as of late are a good thing. With many lost jobs in the automotive sector, hopefully the lower gas prices will help get some people working again. I do think however, that the prices will shoot right back up as soon as people have money to spend again. Also it seems that the days of internal combustion are creeping toward the end. With all of the new Hybrid, hydrogen powered prototypes, and ZENN cars I can see the end of the combustion engine.

Is cheap gas good or bad? Cheap gas is nothing but good, if and only if, we are forced to invest in and use alternative fuels, public transit, etc. We the public are lazy and ignorant, we have to be forced to do the right thing. Yes when gas prices are high we buy less, and conserve a little more, but we don't really change our values as soon as it goes back down, back to the same old thing, the vicious circle we are in now.

High gas prices only give the gas companies more profit!! Which is bad for everyone but them!! If the public really changed there ways permanently and used less gas we would all win. I don't think the high pump price will force us.

I may be totally off the mark here..... but the gas price reductions (that are still moving down in my area) are caused by the stock market/financial crisis and not anything else. People are pulling there money out of the market price goes down, people think it is a good investment put there money into it and price goes up. And the price always changes because the reason is that they will charge the highest price the market will bear. When the gas companies are making high profits from the stock market then the price can be high even if they do not sell as much gas, profits are still high, bottom line $$$. If they make low profits from the stock market then the price goes down so more people will buy to get there profits up.

Oh and just so you know, I only use about a tank of gas a month in a small car and keep thermostats low, etc. trying to do my part, but I could do better, we all can.

I doubt if any of that made sense, but at least I feel better ;-)

Whatever we can save on things that we can't do without helps in the long run. I live in a village with no other means of transport other than to use my car so the lowering of gas prices helps me even in a small way. All the pennies we spend at present all add up and even the littlest of savings makes a different.

Its good because it is demand driven. People are using less gas, so the price is coming down. As others have mentioned, it will also delay development of new supplies, which, again is also good.

With the economy in the dumps, people can't afford gas anyway so the low price does not matter.

On the bright side I can now fill my tank for much less then I did a few months ago. I couldn’t afford the hybrid version of the car I drive (it was $10,000 more) so I am still stuck with gas.
Unfortunately with the development of hybrids / electric cars dependent solely on demand (let’s not kid ourselves), the demand will drop down again. It seems people are very short sighted and have very short memory and therefore would rather keep their gas guzzlers for as long as they can stretch their credit cards..
I just came back from a trip to Europe and one of the things that struck me was the amount of small cars they have. Many of these models are not even available on this side of the Atlantic, again for lack of demand.. Now, I know the whole excuse about larger distances that people in North America cover. All I can say is that I don’t buy it; the vast majority of people still drive under 100 miles to get to work and you don’t need an eight cylinder SUV to cover that distance.

Although those who frequent this site may be able to continue using less gas, even given the lower price... the fact of the matter is that the majority of Americans regularly exhibit short memories, and tight wallets.

When a similar chain of events happened in the seventies, Americans stopped thinking about efficient compact cars and public transportation, and bought SUVs. About the only thing that is essentially different is the credit crunch brought on by the banking crash, which will keep people from spending as wantonly as they did in the seventies.

But if they see cheap gas, most Americans will conveniently forget about efficient cars and transportation alternatives. Unfortunately for the rest of us.

cheap petrol.... hmmm. that won't really last.. OPEC brought the prices down because they were asked to... you think in todays currency value, they'll leave the prices as they are?? I doubt it... Cheaper petrol is all right if cars that use them are largely hybrids or highly efficient like the VW polo Blue Motion with 74 mpg rated by VW, and 80 mpg as tested by top gear's Richard Hammond by hypermiling part of the way in a 740 mile journey on 1 ten gallon tank. The VW polo BM is NOT a hybrid.. It's a regular 3 cylinder petrol engined car. Amazing bit of engineering there..

But seriously, I just don't get why car manufacturers are taking so long to get around to putting some serious effort into bringing out electric cars like EV1 and he Rav4 electric.. apparently there's a bit of confusion regarding what the market is calling for... bloody idiots. that new Michelin active wheel device could do something along the lines of cheaper electricars...

@ steve Jordan

at that time, America, and indeed the rest of the world, din't give a damn about the consequences of screwing up the environment. Not so now. most countries are trying to sink their collective teeth into a slice of the renewable energy sector

@sid:

In the seventies, a lot of people cared about the environment... the problem didn't just present itself last year. However, most people cared far more about their own comfort, and saw little reason to take steps outside of the worst regions (southern California, for example).

Today... guess what? It still comes down to personal comfort with most Americans. Even with high energy prices and global warming looming, I still know plenty of people who wouldn't think of turning off their nicely bright halogen room lights, or retiring their Avalanches for Smart cars.

Businesses and some countries may be trying to "go green," for profit's sake. But Joe American, by and large, is still praying that he won't be forced to take the bus. He feels "green" is being forced down his throat, and he'd rather fight than switch... especially if he thinks it's cheaper and more comfortable to fight.

That's why, even with gas prices on the floor, we still have a battle on our hands keeping Americans focused and moving in the right direction, instead of slumping back into their old habits.

#1 Your #1 reason is ridiculous ... you might as well say getting out of bed increases traffic deaths since more people are conscious and likely to get in an automobile.

#2 Duh! Money talks. Why don't we do a bit a research on why mass transit cost so much.

#3 See #2.

#4 This is not an individual decision really; it's a political one. Government can easily provide sufficient incentives to make it more attractive to produce domestic sources and to engineer more efficient methods of fueling transport.

#5 Sorry, but this is stretching your argument really. A manufacturing plant or office employing 3000 people can not expect all 3000 people to live within walking distance no matter how cheap gas is.

This article really doesn't do proper justice to the topic as it reaches for reasons which are, on balance, unreasonable.

5000 fewer deaths last year due to increased prices and the resulting decrease in driving is not insignificant. That's one 9/11 and then some.

Cheap gas??? Tragically most Americans, including most Treehugger readers apparently, don't know that gas is currently over $10 a gallon. All you have to do is add up all the costs you don't pay at the gas pumps to see that this is true. Or you could google, the real cost of gas.

Cheap gas??? Tragically most Americans, including most Treehugger readers apparently, don't know that gas is currently over $10 a gallon. All you have to do is add up all the costs you don't pay at the gas pumps to see that this is true. Or you could google, the real cost of gas.

I am also one that is unaffected by gas prices. I drove 50,000 miles last year, and have done about 42,000 miles again this year. All higher gas prices do is slow me down from purchasing other things like energy efficient bulbs. :)