Many Americans are cutting back on everyday expenses as gas prices soar due to President Donald Trump’s war in Iran, now approaching the 10-week mark. About 44 percent of Americans said they’re driving less due to high gas prices, while 42 percent said they’ve slashed household expenses, according to a Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll. In addition, the poll revealed that 34 percent have altered travel or vacation plans. Americans are changing their behaviors as national average gas prices hit $4.43 per gallon Saturday, according to the AAA motor club. This time last year, the national average was just $3.15 per gallon. Patrick de Haan, a petroleum analyst for GasBuddy, said Saturday’s average price marked a sobering new record. “The national average price of gasoline has never been higher on the second day in May than it is today,” he wrote on X.
So much winning
As I am forced back into the office because downtowns and business are lazy assholes and didn’t transition and figure out how to be better
If this means not getting shit Starbucks 3x a day I’m on board, ironically.
I guess it takes gas hitting $5/gallon for people to start riding bikes around here. It’s also strange how empty the gas stations are today.
Lucky! Where I live, it’s too hot to ride a bike for 7 months out of the year, and public transport does not exist outside of the suburbs.
A round trip Uber/Lyft to work is $110, and I make $120/day after taxes/insurance/investments.
A round trip drive takes two gallons of gas, so even at $45/gallon it would still be cheaper to just drive.
If gas were $45/gallon I think it’d be cheaper to invest in clean energy and drive an electric car or, better yet, the city invests in trolly busses or trains.
You can’t make a civilization run on cheap gas forever.
Oh poor Americans…who chose him.
Not cutting out driving?
I had to deal with an office in the US recently. Still meeting together, still taking trips for “team building”. All while complaining about the high cost of fuel to travel. The remote work for the most part, but the higher up you go in their corporate ladder, the more travel and luxury they afford themselves. And then ask all their lowest workers to join in too, on their own dime.
Morons the lot of them.
We can’t cut out driving. American society is built around cars.
This is such a bullshit excuse, because while it’s true, there is no reason why Americans haven’t regulated cars to be more energy efficient, and why they haven’t built better public transport since the 70’s.
On average European cars have about 30% better mileage than American cars, and almost all energy saving technologies were invented and implemented in either Japan or Europe.USA is a shitty country, first because they DEMAND these shitty huge cars with poor safety records, second because they DEMAND they are cheap to use, with no regard for climate change.
Americans drive more, and they drive less fuel economic than other places in the world with better regulation.
The net result is the average American pollute 2-3 times more than average for developed countries.USA is a country of selfish psychopaths (on average), that refuse to take responsibility for their actions.
I’m not going to refute your overall assessment of Americans writ large (because I in large part agree.) I too wish we had better public transmit option. But what you’re saying ignores 1) the vast increase in distances the American needs to travel, and 2) the average American car isn’t less efficient, it’s (to your point) much larger. The lower efficiency comes from the size, not technology.
Maybe I’m biased because I’m in California (and not the shittier parts of the US), but I see California as every bit as responsible for automobile emission and safety laws as Europe or East Asia.
Is the average American selfish? Undoubtedly. Did Europe/Japan invest in public transmit when America didn’t? Also without a doubt. But I also think it’s not quite so easy to paint with that brush if you take into account what makes America different than Europe/Japan.
the vast increase in distances the American needs to travel,
That should motivate to drive more gas efficient cars not less.
the average American car isn’t less efficient
It is less efficient in that they use more gas, weight and aerodynamics are part of that equation. many American cars have piss poor aerodynamics, and they are heavier for the same size of car, in part because of bigger motors and a cheaper frame based construction. The engines are also typically way less efficient, using big V8 engines with poor efficiency, that you would simply never see in Europe. The widespread use of giant cars like the Ford F-150 is insane. It’s almost like people in Nebraska buy them because they “need” to be able to carry a surf board to the beach 2000 km away. So yes American cars are way less efficient on average.
Maybe I’m biased because I’m in California
IDK maybe you are, California is AFAIK leading USA regarding emissions, when California set a standard, the auto makers follow it, and by proxy the rest of USA get cars that follow the Californian standard.
Problem has been for decades that where efficient 4 cylinder engines have been standard in Europe, USA has used wildly inefficient V8 engines. So no the Americans have not been using the same technologies nearly as much. For instance when we got 4 valves per cylinder in Europe, Ford was way behind, and advertised what they called lean burn. A way inferior technology, that both yielded fewer HP for the same size engine, and had lower gas efficiency.In Europe developments have been very much on the weight too, like the VW Polo 3l that could drive 100 km on 3 liter of gas, or 62,18 miles 0,79 gallon or 78 miles per gallon.
Part of achieving that was to use magnesium for the rims, and an extremely efficient 3 cylinder engine. This car was very popular here in Denmark, despite it was very expensive for the driving experience. But here most people are actively engaged in lowering the environmental footprint, while even in California such a car is probably unsalable.As an example we don’t currently feel the oil crisis at all, because our household has zero dependency on oil, we use wood pellets for heating (Denmark is a relatively cold country), we have solar panels that cover 80% of our electricity needs throughout the year, and we drive an electric car we can charge from the panels.
Denmark as a country has 82% as a whole, so what we buy from the grid has similar efficiency, reducing our dependency on non renewable energy to only 4% for our household.80+% of new cars sold in Denmark are electric.
I know Denmark is among the leaders in EV in Europe, just like California is for USA. But I expect you can see the difference between a European leading nation and a leading state in USA.
I know many Americans try to be more green, but the disinformation allowed in marketing makes it harder, and the lack of actually green production makes it near impossible.
In Europe we have way better democracies, and many European countries have parties to represent them that have a green agenda. An American voter mostly doesn’t even have the option to vote green.Sorry for the rant, but as you maybe can see, USA is mostly dysfunctional in this area, and failed to learn the lesson of the oil crisis in the 70’s, while most of the rest of the world did. Which is extremely unfortunate, since USA has all the natural conditions that exist around the world to develop and implement renewable energies, and USA had the biggest research and development capacity for many decades. So USA idling along on a free pass has been very damaging to the global development too.
I totally agree, 360M children
USA is a country of selfish psychopaths
and Trump is the #1 american
Absolutely, Trump is not the problem, he is a symptom of American selfishness and disregard towards others, also called psychopathy.
This problem is not just in waging war against peaceful countries, bombing girl schools, and help Israel committing genocide, and extorting allies. This is also internally, removing healthcare while giving very expensive tax cuts to the rich. America first is nothing but a rewording of ME FIRST, like small children that haven’t learned empathy yet.
I yearn for public transportation. Best I can do is drive 7 miles to a park and ride, and then ride a bus for 4 miles to work. Not exactly an alternative.
Me too! I try almost every day to choose [what little available] public transpiration options. But in nearly every case, it’s going to take twice as long as driving, and cost more than twice what my electric car costs to operate. And that’s not even factoring in the final mile problem, which is often a deal breaker unto itself.
I live in a medium California city with some public transit, but it’s still car/suburb centric.
Sure they can. But they won’t.
I have seen the data: they tend not to group going to work with other errands, they tend not to car pool or even try other forms of commuting.
In fairness, many companies forced workers to go back to offices so there is a lot of bullshit from money keeping them this way, which stops people from setting up social events locally or having the time (or energy) to do shopping after work.
Most people drive a couple of times a day (!) trips less than 6 miles long, and of those errands, shopping, kids and church are 76% of all miles traveled.
Also, there is no reason not to change, lots of US cities and groups are trying to redefine what cities and suburbs look like. But will the populace change?
How many of those trips in a car are to the gym?
How many of those trips in a car are to the gym?
None, I can’t afford the gym in this economy.
Shows you how absolutely broke most Americans are they can’t absorb an extra $50 or so per month.
If it gets the MAGAts to care, keep jacking the price up!
I still don’t even get how fast food places can stay in business.
Spend $15 on a cheeseburger and $5 on fuel idling in the drive-through. What a bargain!
Well they almost doubled their prices already since the pandemic
Yeah about a year ago or so it was 3 dollars buy one get one free from the value menu at McDonald’s then they changed it to buy one get one for a dollar the other day I went and they just changed it again to 3 dollars per item.
thats what I mean. I was aweful and went to them far to often but they not only stopped being a trivial cost and well that was that. I never realized how easy it would be for me to stop wasting money on fast food and lottery tickets.
You know I didn’t think too much about the daily expense of gas since we drive relatively fuel efficient cars, but I looked up the mpg for some of the trucks and stuff near me and… How the fuck do people commute with mpgs as low as 12, sometimes?
Like, you shouldn’t commute over an hour anyway, but at 60 miles one way, some cars burn 5 fucking gallons. This has gotta be wrecking his truck driving supporters.
I’m pretty sure Biden did the fuel prices, that’s what the sticker on the pump said at least.
-His truck driving supporters, probably.
I’m a gearhead so my vehicles aren’t all efficient, and I just see higher fuel prices as the cost of my hobby going up, which isn’t good, but being a gearhead was already expensive. I’m sure these guys in oversized trucks feel feel similar.
That said, I also like cycling, have an electric skateboard, and use public transit when it makes sense, and I work from home, so the fuel prices don’t really affect me as much as some. Now, if I had a 120 mile round-trip commute I’d
kmsget an EV or plugin hybrid or ride my motorcycle, only driving my fun cars on occasion.A couple of years ago I got to see a guy shoehorn his person Ford F650 into a Starbucks parking lot. He was so proud of his massive waste of resources that he used daily for commuting and errands. It was utterly sickening with ow much he was excited to talk about how much he was wasting to “stick it to those horrible environmentalists”.
The Ford F650 is generally reported to get about 6.75 mpg. Gas prices up? Fuck that asshole. He deserves it.
In my red hat area, guys buy big fancy gas hog trucks mostly for show and to haul beer and dog food. They would never dream of hauling firewood in them - they have trailers for that.
jesus put that oil in the ground for us to burn.
Well, the climate activists and net-zero army should be really excited now that gas prices are getting higher. No one would be able to afford it and we would get the zero-emissions goals they truly crave.
Gas will have to be high for a long time to make a difference with EVs here, especially with the huge level of protectionism. Since legacy automakers pretty much gave up on EVs and most new technology companies are blocked, pretty much all we have are Tesla and Hyundai/Kia. Hopefully Rivian can make it over the humo of mass production but you can’t really call them more than a niche so far
It’s actually making a serious (at least short term) shift on EV sales in Germany. They’re spiking hard right now.
Germany also legalized balcony based solar panels for grid connections. People are excited about lower energy bills, and even directly charging their own cars from their own solar panels.
All of the data shows that renewables are winning the economics in the market compared to carbon-based options. We just need to keep pushing so the rich people let us move faster.
The fuck. My dinkie little 25 year old Tacoma can go for about 230 miles on a full tank, that’s with it struggling up hill. Why would you want one of these trucks unless you wanted just the body to do an engine swap and fully customize but still.
he could walk up and pop all their tires and they would still blame Joe Biden and vote for trump again.
Somehow it’s Obama’s fault.
they probably just blame biden to make themselves feel better about their decisions
Last time I had to drive a somewhat far away job for me. It was 30 miles. I had a not worse but not best mpg vehicle and had to fill up every week. I think that is fairly typical. trucks like that Im not sure you could get away with only twice a week. I mean maybe because I think the tanks are bigger but man then each fillup must be huge.
And yet they would still vote for the orange turd
Well yah, still ain’t great yet…
His oppoment had a funny laugh, and it was enough for some enlightened people to sit it out.
Couldn’t win against a well known rapist, racist, bankrupt, and a pedophile.
That wasn’t an opponent, it was pathetic attempt at even trying.
If you’re against a dumpster fire of a persom, and the dumpster fire wins, i don’t think whining about the “voters” works. But keep doing you, i hope she sees this. 🤞
Never go full r tard.
Sorry for those of you I’ve offended for this tropic thunder quote.
Yall should stop acting like the other option would be any different.
You should probably get a brain
Go ahead and fuck all the way off with this obviously false statement.
That would be true if it was a case of party in federal power changes, but the national (and international) policies remain the same
Idk… I kinda want the price of groceries to go down… 🤷 that might help me be able to save for an EV.
But… Trump did jack shit, and the prices of eggs eventually went down. Let’s go with his strategy!
Guys this is temporary! It’s just that my definition of temporary might be a bit longer than you like!
how many of those plan to vote the same?
Probably depends on the opposition. If the dems run on “we’re going to end the Iran war day 1 and remove the tariffs on chinese EVs, batteries, and solar panels so gas prices go down”, there’s a decent chance the people activated by gas prices switch.
If the dems run on “we’re going to carry out the war more competently and start a comittee to investigate a study of potential market-based means-tested tax-credits for small business owners who drive American trucks between 3 and 8 years old”, they’re certainly going to vote Trump again.
I love that the president is a rapist, 34 count felon fraudster, collaborated with Russian spies to win in 2016, lied about the Mueller report and mocked Mueller’s death, mocked McCain’s war experience, completely caused the farm bailout, staged an insurrection, pardoned the insurrectionists, tried the false electors scheme, mocked the mentally ill on a debate stage, paid off a pornstar to not talk about him paying to fuck her while Melania was caring for their newborn, ran a scam college, is taking bribes for pardons, is accepting unreported international money into his crypto scam company, bankrupted casinos, was best friends and had wonderful secrets with one of the most prolific sex traffickers and pedophiles in US history and has been covering up the Epstein files
BUT FUCKING GAS PRICES ARE WHAT IS CHANGING REPUBLICANS MINDS.
After they re-elected the dumb motherfucker based on blatant lies about crime rates and a complete misunderstanding of Biden handling of the COVID era economy.
Everyone’s dumb as shit and we are fucked
mocked Mueller’s death
Fuck Mueller, lifelong republican getting mocked by the guy he saved is the way that piece of shit should be remembered.
mocked McCain’s war experience
Fuck John McCain. The NVA had to race to capture his team before they were lynched by the families of the villagers they’d just murdered.
the unifying republican doctrine is lack of empathy for the other
and to only give a fuck about anything that affects themselves in a very direct way
They are in a cult. They never hear about most of the news that goes on every day, and what they do get is 100% approved by the republican censors. Maybe they get a dose or two on holidays when they’re forced to interact with the family Democrat, but other than that they are in a well-insulated information bubble that hardly ever breaks. That’s why they took over the radio stations and have their own ecosystem of news networks. The reason gas is the tipping point is because for a lot of people it’s the first visible sign that something is really wrong.
EDIT: also for what it’s worth, it’s not just idiots. Smart people get taken in by cults all the time and if you think you’re too smart to fall for a cult you’re a mark. You also do yourself a disservice if you think every Republican voting against their own interest is just a stupid yokel. They are victims of a vast and well-orchestrated information attack, and many of them don’t have the tools to defend themselves because no one ever taught them any. I had to learn about a lot of them myself, and even still I got lucky by being able to go to college and meet the right people to help me escape. Not everyone gets those opportunities. That doesn’t make them stupid.
It isn’t just Republicans, a lot of swing voters and independents are just as maliciously apathetic.
I agree all of those are terrible, and I hope it’s clear I didn’t ever even remotely consider voting for the guy; but you realize why none of those things really matter to the average American who is struggling to get by every day, right?
Like: mocking leaders’ deaths, mocking people with disabilities, having affairs with porn stars… – those are all terrible, inhumane, and “un-professional” things for the person to do; but when you’re desperate for some change and lost faith in the other party, it makes sense that voters would be willing to ignore those. Perhaps these aspects are indicators of what the guy would do in office; but most people in this country don’t think that deep into anything.
The involvement in Epstein’s sex-trafficking ring is a powerful point because it hits just about every group with disgust. For the rest of this, I’d just focus more on Trump’s ties to Big Tech and Big Finance; because that’s the avenue that people feel the effect of. That and this country’s shitty Medical system.
BUT FUCKING GAS PRICES ARE WHAT MIGHT BE CHANGING REPUBLICANS MINDS.
It’s not even clear that they’ll change their mind. There is a possibility, but if the dems dare to show with a less than perfect strategy and there’s a single point that could be considered slightly unperfect, they will vote rep again.
Oh, or if pedohitler manipulates the market again and the gas prices dip slightly for 2 days before the elections.
if the dems dare to show with a less than perfect strategy and there’s a single point that could be considered slightly unperfect, they will vote rep again.
Don’t be hyperbolic, they just have to do what people want and help them instead of genocide and trying to be republicans.
We don’t even need Trump voters to vote D, they’re going to stay home in greater numbers because their party is doing the opposite of what was promised. We just need the dems not to do the thing they do every fucking time.
no way the remaining republicans learn anything now
those who could are democrats by now, or at least independants
Like Zelensky, Donald Trump had a career as a paid-actor.
After they re-elected the dumb motherfucker based on blatant lies about crime rates and a complete misunderstanding of Biden handling of the COVID era economy.
Wrong. Democrats re-elected him when they stayed home because they couldn’t bring themselves to go to the polls and vote for a black women. There’s nobody else to blame.
Attempting to blame racism or sexism for Harris’ many, many, many faults during her campaign just shows you don’t understand the American voting public, voting in general, or why democrats will lose 2028.
I understand that Democrats in 6 key states stayed home, or voted for third party candidates. They gave Trump the win. Nobody else.
Yes I too blame the water in a cup when the cup breaks. I am very smart like you.
Votes probably won’t matter in 2028. 2024 was the last chance to at least hold the line.
sure they do, why do you think they keep trying to steal them
ow if you mean they are going to be successful at it, yea probably
All of them
10 weeks? If the US was at war with a country that bombed them in June 2025, no one in the audience will say that conflict has been 10 weeks long today.
