GAINESVILLE, Fla.—As if the price of gas wasn’t enough, a line of impatient motorists waiting behind him with sullen faces and engines rumbling made Zephrin Green’s visit to a Sam’s Club gas pump even more stressful.
As he prepared to fill the tank of his blue Subaru BRZ for an evening of Uber-driving, he tried to activate the pump as quickly as possible. Glancing at the price, he made quick calculations in his head.
“It takes 9.9 gallons to fill the tank,” he said. “I already know it’s going to take $50.”
Green used to make $140 to $180 per day ferrying Uber customers to their destinations around the college town of Gainesville in the middle of North Florida.
Since gas prices surged, his profits have dwindled to between $100 and $130—not enough to cover his bills and help support his young daughter. If the price of gas goes higher, he’ll have to stop driving and find different work.
Gas prices are now the highest that consumers have ever paid in the United States. The $4-per-gallon mark is the tipping point that will force 60 percent of drivers to make changes, according to a AAA survey released March 10.
If gas hits $5 per gallon, 75 percent of U.S. drivers say they’ll be forced to change the way they live in order to keep up, the survey shows.
“A significant portion of drivers just don’t have the elasticity in their family budgets to deal with fluctuating gas prices,” AAA spokesman Robert Sinclair Jr. told The Epoch Times.
In 2018, when AAA asked drivers to reveal their “pain point for the price of gasoline,” 40 percent said they’d have to make major lifestyle changes if gas ever reached $3 per gallon,” said Sinclair, who is senior manager of public affairs for AAA Northeast. “And now, here we are.”
Driving less was the change 80 percent said they’d be forced to make. Almost a third of drivers between 18 and 34 said they’d start carpooling to save money on gas. But only 11 percent of those over 35 were willing to consider carpooling as a solution.
By Nanette Holt
