Amazingly bad reporting on gas prices

[dlakelan]

I'm bored with people honking on high gas prices on the radio and internet and soforth. No-one ever analyzes the data correctly so it's just all sound and fury. Sure it's been going up rapidly, but how big a fraction of people's income is gas cost

Comments

commuting distance

[anonymous]

care to comment on whether "500 gallons of gas (a good order of magnitude of the amount we use in a year on short commutes in a decent commuter car)" has remained equally valid over the last 28 years?

Re: commuting distance

[dlakelan]

As an order of magnitude it is valid. As a more precise estimate, no it probably hasn't. but the effect is twofold, one is changing average commute distance, and the other is changing average fuel efficiency. Fuel efficiency of "decent commuter cars" has fluctuated quite a bit I think as people trade off safety and convenience for efficiency for example. Another effect is that as people get wealthier they tend to move farther from urban centers into the suburbs, so the economic growth of the last 30 years has probably increased the number of people living in outer suburbs.

It's a good point. thanks for bringing it up. If I were doing a research project i would want to look into this effect. But I think it will be a second order one, such as perhaps a factor of 1.25 or so.

Re: commuting distance

[dlakelan]

Also, when prices are low, people will use more, and when prices are high, they will use less... so if anything the effect might be to reduce the variability through time.

Just wanted to say

[anonymous]

Brilliant!