What Fuel Crisis?

WHAT FUEL CRISIS?

News flash! Gasoline really isn’t all that expensive.

Gather ’round children and let me tell you of a magical time long ago, a Camelot for lovers of the internal-combustion engine, a Brigadoon now almost entirely engulfed by the swirling mists of history. Back then, weary travelers were beckoned to oasis-like structures called “service stations,” where uniformed attendants sprang to action upon your arrival-one checking the engine’s oil level and the tires’ air pressures, another wiping the windshield clear of bugs and road grime, yet another filling your tank with gasoline.

Advice was dispensed about weather and road conditions ahead, and if the car needed major repairs, a service bay was open and waiting.

The year was 1966. A gallon of regular gas cost a quarter, a nickel and tWO pennies...

Scrrrreeeccchhh! Okay, Lawrence Welk, toss the rose-colored goggles and settle in for a dose of economic reality via the Consumer Price Index. First, one of the reasons service stations went the way of the bison is that modern automobiles don’t need that much fixing anymore. An operator could go broke waiting for your fan belt to break. Better to sell you a Slurpee, a Three Musketeers and a pack of cancer sticks.

Then let’s look at this magical $.32 gallon of 1966 petrol. Back then the average household income was $7400. Today, the average American family earns about $45,000, roughly six times as much. If we go to the Department of Labor’s website and access their handy-dandy CPI calculator (your tax dollars at work), we discover that 32 cents in 1966 money equals $1.97 in today’s cash, again six times as much. Not coincidentally, per-gallon gas prices just before Hurricane Katrina hovered around the $2 mark. In real dollars, gas cost the same as in 1966!

Now, I’m not defending the post-Katrina $1-per-gallon jump. Oil company officials are in front of Congress right now answering for that and if gouging went on, haul the bastards up by their nubblies, I say. But here’s a little perspective, courtesy of a trip to the local Costco big-box store. All I can say, it’s a good thing our bikes aren’t fueled by Tennessee sipping whiskey! -David Edwards