What Would $40 A Barrel Oil Mean For Travelers?
Oil is now nearing a 4-year low as the world's economic crisis keeps on truckin', says the Wall Street Journal. Light, sweet crude (don't you just love that term?) is now trading at 44.56 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. "The price was the lowest since January 2005 and more than $100 below oil's record close July 3," says the WSJ. So, what does that mean for travelers?
Christopher Elliott has a few ideas, here's our favorite. It's the return of the road trip!:
Here come the drivers! The Transportation Department has been complaining about a shortfall in road tax revenue. Wait until next summer, when a lot of pent-up demand to hit the road sees hundreds of thousands of vehicles unleashed on American highways.
See the USA in your Chevrolet... (before they no longer make Chevrolets...)
With oil prices spiraling toward $40 a barrel mark, what does that mean for travelers? [Tripso]
(Photo: improbcat )
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Comments:
The only thing $40 a barrel oil means is that foreclosed families living in their cars will be able to afford to comply when the cop comes banging on the window with his mag light and tells them to move along from under that overpass.
I will say, it has been absolutely NUTS how much oil has fallen since July, but the market has seen what greed does to the people who buy your product.
I wonder if I will see 99 cent gas before all is said and done (living in the midwest, its a possibility).
Obviously the airlines will start removing all these new baggage fees and fuel surcharges, right?
Right?!?
It means that I won't have a $300 bill for gassing up my car.
it means that my bicycle will cost less to repair, since the oil for the tire rubber is cheaper?
One thing I won't count on: for airlines to remove all the baggage, blanket, and other extra fees they tacked on. I wouldn't count on them backing off from the fuel surcharge even!
It means that the roads will clog up again. Rush hour in LA has gotten 2-3x worse in the last 3 weeks than it was when gas was $4.50.
Well, it would mean seeing more Hummers on the road (and not the fun kind).
I am not a fan of high oil and gas prices, by no means.
But I did sorta appreciate not having Hummers blocking my view of the road for a while. And the increased use of rail shipments tickled my nostalgia center. It's not door-to-door, which is its main drawback logistically. But it is more fuel efficient to transport via rail.
It just seems such a waste of decades of hard work when the rail system is allowed to die off.
I can actually afford to drive my truck toanfro work again. Nice. Not that i actually do except for Friday's now, i got a commuter cars to not just save gas money but wear and tear and miles on the truck. One (minor) happy piece of a recession i suppose.
@jbl-az: Most have already done away with the fuel surcharges, by just rolling them into the base price of the ticket.
It will mean that companies will no longer be able to use high oil prices as an excuse to jack up their prices.
Super-duper poll: What's going to be the next great excuse?
I still drive like it's $1.75/liter ($6.63 / gallon).
There's no reason fuel is cheap to decide to continue slaughtering the environment. Now that we're mindful of how wasteful driving styles can be, simply maintaining that which we learned (a Scanguage II can help) during the high prices can help to continue to save money and have a lighter carbon footprint.
Low price or not, my wife and I got into car pooling and taking public transit. Short of a long business trip for which the car is necessary, we now go through a tank of gas every three weeks and our car is pretty demanding on fuel what with it's full time all wheel drive.
To me it means I can afford to drive my car again. In june when it was costing $80+ to fill up my car (a sedan not an suv) it was just too much to drive the car. So it sat there, with me making the car payments on it and the insurance payments on it, and wasn't being driven.
I can see now why no one is buying cars. Mine became a bad investment. I know it depreciates in value, but i'm paying for something that I cant even use. Now though when It cost me around $30 to fill it up I'm driving it more.
Cheaper deviant sex parties? Unless the price of giant plastic drop cloths goes way up.
I just did a one-way 800 mile trip and tallied up all my gas--under $50. I checked and re-checked, because its been so long since I've taken a road trip for less than $100 in gas.
@courtarro: you have to remember, they claimed it a 'huge success'. So they will continue to be dicks about it.
I think it's hilarious looking back at how many people were freaking that gas was gonna be 5-6 dollars a gallon before 2009.
@courtarro: Now they have to charge you a higher fuel pumping surchage. You see, gas is so cheap that planes fly more often, so now they have to fill them up more often. Gotta be a fee for that.
Now I can actually afford to put premium gas in my GTO again!
The only thing that's changing for me is that less money is leaving my pocket when I fill up my car. Cheaper gas doesn't make me want to take road trips.
@BoomerFive: it still could be. When the price of gas swings back the other way, it will swing with a vengeance.
OPEC will cut production further, while local oil companies will stop drilling new spots (relying on their current wells), while consumers ramp up demand again.
Then all it takes is a hurricane to disrupt our gulf supplies and a symbolic (ie: doesnt accomplish jack) terror attack on an oil line in some country you dont care about, and bam - price is soaring past $150 a barrel again.
@ChildrenAreSticky: I assume from the post that we're not talking about random desire to drive somewhere, but more like visiting family and friends, or taking previously-planned trips that you had to skip when gas was more expensive.
I love the fact that the world is going to end because OIL IS SO CHEAP!!!!
Meanwhile, it's merely back down to the levels it was at 4 years ago, and if I'm not mistaken, the world DIDN'T end.*
*-well, it didn't end for those living outside New Orleans anyway.
I am absolutely planning more road trips now that the price of gas is so low. It's funny how, when the economy was "good," nobody could afford road trips, and now that it's bad it's actually a good cheap way to get away for a bit.
It means I can drive my jeep more (now that winter is here)than my sedan. Other than that, my driving habits haven't changed, I always try to squeeze as much mileage out of a gallon as possible. The freeways were definately much clearer this summer.
Still hoping to get a bus line that will take me to work in under 2.5 hours (35 minute drive)
I love it when they come out with figures like this... it seems so pointless. Oil was this inexpensive only four years ago! Come on, four years is nothing (though, considering what has happened in four years it is a significant number in this case).
But I've been hearing on the radio the past six months "The dow hit the lowest point in 2 months today" "Oil is the lowest its been in 18 months"
Come back when its a really important number, like 50 years. Sensationalist Journalism, sheesh.
@kiltman: Same - over the summer I took the bus because $4/gal was crazy. But it added about an hour to my otherwise 15 minute commute.
@ChildrenAreSticky: I am glad that gas has become reasonable so I don't have to fly to my parents house instead of driving this holiday.
As much as I despise the 7-hour trip, $50 is alot less to pay than $300.
@socalrob: Yeah I even gave up driving to work for 2 and a half months, still paying insurance and still paying for the car.
I've decided in an attempt to finally be able to *save money* that I just throw my savings into the car and then I can start fresh and actually save with no debt!
@ckaught78: The last image is a whole new take on dropping the kids off at school.
Besides, I hear the manual transmission gets better mileage.
@Jonbo298: First time I came to orlando, gas was .99 at one station and like 1.03 everywhere else. That was 7 years ago, and needless to say even my dad was flummoxed.
Lower oil prices? That's TERRIBLE news! It means I may lose my job and my local economy could be headed south like the rest of the country. I live in HOUSTON. :-S Concerned...
If gas prices are still somewhat low next summer, I can take the family to South Dakota. We had planned a camping trip to Custer State Park a couple years ago, but gas was just too high.
@Oranges w/ Cheese: That trip was in my wife's car, a Passat wagon (AWD V6 Auto is a gas-hog)
I drive an older Passat sedan (FWD V6 stick shift gets about 5mpg better all-around)
I ratcheted my remote start time-out to 60 minutes... I need to make sure that my interior is 100% heated before I get in.... none of this 90% stuff I had when I only let it run for 20 minutes before getting in.
@Oranges w/ Cheese: 7 years ago sounds about right. It was pretty close to that in rural Maryland around that time as well.
What I do not get is the H2 and H3 (Hummer). Why I do no own a Hummer I know someone that does. He does let me drive it and its fun and all. We/He does not drive it on the street.
@jbl-az:
Then f the airlines, it'll be cheaper to drive across country for a vacation then fly if they want to try and hold all those fees.
Greedy Bastards.
@jurijuri:
I've been thinking the same thought. I've wanted to get away for a while, and after a rough semester of school (calculus 3 and electromagnetic physics make my brain hurt!) it's needed. This drop in gas prices couldn't come at a better time. But now to quote Lenny (Simpsons) "If I only had somewhere to go." :)
@HFC: I have a good friend getting married next summer, and gas prices staying where they are now-about $1.60 here-would really help me drive there in my new car. Well, used car. But it's an upgrade over my old clunker.
But they are going to go up again, right? Just a matter of time, supposedly.
what no one is talking about is WHY the price of oil/gas skyrocketed so high, and what we (and by 'we' I mean the US government) can do to regulate the practices that led to this travesty.
To everyone who has taken a hosing on their oil stocks, I say "Good on ya, sir, good on ya!!"
The rich keep getting richer, and the poor remain, by choice, woefully ignorant.
It means I can finally take my International CXT out of storage.
[www.motortrend.com]