Odograph.com

In a discussion at ANWR News, I wondered if people just haven’t added up what they are spending on gas. Hoping to do some math, I tried to find the average miles driven by California families. I could not get that directly.

I did find this page about 2004 price gouging:

Here’s another telling fact. UCAN has compared Southern California gasoline prices with those charged in the rest of the nation. From February 9 through this past month (March 8th) the difference between the national average and the Southern California average gasoline price is about forty cents a gallon. That means the average Southern California family pays about $22 more each week for gasoline than customers in other states. Over a month that is more than $80 – which again, dwarfs the electricity price increases felt by state consumers during the 2000-2001 California Energy Crisis.

If $0.40 * X = $80 .. they think the average California family buys 200 gallons of gas a month or 2400 a year. At $2.25 a gallon that’s $5400 a year … no, I don’t think people really know they are spending that.

… if anyone has better numbers for family miles we can refine this.

[Update: I found a DOE page that has a number of reports on Energy Use in Transportation. It looks like the national average VMT (Vehicle Miles Traveled) per household is about 22K miles right now. Even at 15 mpg and $2.25/gal that's only $3300. Still a chunk of change, but not five grand.]

This entry was posted on Monday, June 13th, 2005 at 3:17 pm and is filed under Environment, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.