Tank 283 - 30 June 2K11 - Gas is Cheaper, Commute Takes Longer

This morning I refueled again at the Fas Mart near my home, "home of the world's slowest gas pumps," but it's convenient. And since they stopped the annoying speaker that turns on with commercials when you start pumping gas, it's almost tolerable. Except for the silliness of hitting enter after putting in the 5-digit ZIP code, as I referred to earlier.

So anyway, I had gone 429.7 miles on this tank, and added 11.668 gallons of gas, at $3.329 per gallon, making for a fuel economy of 36.83 miles per gallon. It's pretty poor, but my five-tank average remains over 38 mpg, so at least I have that going for me.

I have noted in the past that when gasoline price creeps over $3.50 a gallon, my trip home takes less time on average. The last few weeks have provided data that reinforce this conclusion. Twice this week it's taken me more than 70 minutes to get home, where my average for the year is 59.77 minutes to get home. On Tuesday, at least two crashes delayed my trip. One of the wrecks shut down I-95 so I (and everybody else) had to take route 1 home, which is not a good alternative.

My conclusion is that the cheapening gas price had given the general population of aggressive drivers the green light to speed and swerve around again, and these crashes were evidence that they were out of practice.

Indeed, my conclusion was supported more this morning as I drove to work- a snake of vehicles, including a BMW 3-series (obviously!), an Hyundai (the working man's BMW 3-series), and a crotch-rocket motorcycle all sped through the rest of us speed-limit-following drivers at ludicrous speed, darting across the three lanes of the Interstate from the fast lane to the slow lane and back over the course of about a tenth of a mile (or about 4 or 5 seconds at the speed they were going), only to slam on their brakes as they encountered what obviously was some grandmother rolling roadblock who was only going 70 in the fast lane with her vanpool.

Happily, when I get home this afternoon, I will be on a four-day holiday break, so perhaps I will not need to even sit in a car during this time.