Have you ever noticed how much your tank of gas costs? Have you ever driven on an empty tank just because you do not have any cash to fill it or only had a few dollars in your wallet and knew it would only cover a gallon of gas?
When I first started driving, my mother always urged me to keep 20 dollars in my car so if I ever needed to buy gas I could get enough to get me to where I needed to go. I always thought it was smart advice, but as soon as I started to pump gas into my car, I quickly realized that 20 dollars was not going to be enough. It would get me just enough gas to be able to stop at the next gas station along the way… what good was that?
After talking with some of the students on campus, I have found that the majority of people do not pay attention to gas prices. All they know is the smallest amount they can spend in order to arrive at their desired destination. “With the decline of gas prices it means I get to go shopping more often,” first-year Alyssa Blouse said. Blouse is not the only one on campus who thinks that the decrease of prices means you get to go out even more often. Junior Sam Miller says that having her car on campus is helpful, but always having to put almost 20 dollars into the tank is not plausible. She continued to say, although gas prices are down, they are still high, and it is still hard to always have the correct amount of money to fill your tank.
A few of the students I talked to owned a rewards card to Weis, Giant or Turkey Hill. When asked why they had that card, they said that their parents were a great influence in their decision. Having a rewards card to one of these places just means that every time you use the rewards card at the particular store, depending on the total amount of your purchases, equals the total “gas points” you get. Then, you can turn those points into a gift card which can be used at gas stations.
I also talked to students who do not have a car on campus, but who can drive at home. First-year Alyssa Vielle said she is more likely to not go somewhere if she knows that her gas tank is almost empty. But recently she said that she tries to keep her car with at least a quarter of a tank. With gas prices being as low as they are, Vielle and many others are able to keep their tanks a quarter full.
It is hard to think that in 2008 we were paying close to five dollars for a gallon of gas and now we pay around half that amount. According to USA Today, the national average for gas prices this year will be $2.64.
When asked about gas prices, a lot of the students I talked to did not have a strong opinion. I guess we never thought about gas prices until we ourselves could drive and had to pay for our own gas. Gas prices being almost five dollars caught our attention in the past. Now it is almost half of what it was at its highest point, and we all are thrilled to see the prices decline at such a steady pace.
We will always need gas to fill our cars. There will always be a need for the resource, and there will never be a time where people will go without paying for the resource as well. Our continuous dependence on it will only become more and more of an issue. Having a country in such demand of a natural resource can only keep fueling the need and the lowering of prices as a whole. We will never become fully independent of this resource that we have.
Is it a problem that the students of the campus aren’t aware of the gas prices decline? Or is it the fact that we have always grown up seeing all of the high prices so it becomes second nature to us? Maybe next time you go to fill your tank, you’ll look and see how much you are actually paying.
