Thursday Thoughts: Gasoline, Cycling, and Natural Laws

It’s not news that gasoline prices are rising.  The correct questions are,  “How high will it go?”  and,  “What are we going to do about it?”  As I write this, local prices are between $3.81 and $3.98 per gallon.  Nationally the average price is above four, and climbing rapidly.  Does anyone think this is going to stop soon?

Today’s post title refers to Natural Laws.  The Natural Law I have in mind is the Law of Supply and Demand.  Make no mistake, it is a LAW!  When demand for a commodity is high, the price rises.  When the price rises high enough, the demand will fall, followed shortly thereafter by the price.  Believe it!  This is as much a Law, as Gravity.

I have spoken and written a lot about using the bicycle for transportation.  Please consider the following facts:

There are approximately 2,000,000 active cyclists in the United States.

Almost all of those cyclists are drivers too.

The average driver travels 12,000 mile per year.

The average private motor vehicle gets about 19 miles per gallon.

For the typical driver about 45% of miles are commuting to work, 45% are “utility driving,” and the remainder falls into a variety of categories.

“Utility Driving” means trips to the store, to the pharmacy, the doctor’s office, hauling the kids, or other errands.

Supposing all two million American cyclists actually managed to do about half of our “utility driving” by bike?

1. 12,000/19 =   631.6 gallons of gas per driver.
2. 631.6 X 0.225 = 142.1 gallons saved by using the bike instead of the car.
3. 2,000,000 X 142.1 = 282.4 million gallons not purchased.
4. If gas goes to $5.00 per gallon, that means we could take about $1.421 billion worth of demand off of the market.

If we further suppose that each and every one of us managed to “recruit” one more rider to do the same thing, we’d remove upwards of $2.8 billion worth of demand.  Might that not have an effect on pricing?

Let’s take it just a bit farther.  What if we could manage to change something like10% and 50% of our commuting from gasoline to pedal power, the increased savings could be huge, and the decrease in demand would be felt at the pump.

One might, reasonably ask,  “Okay.  What’s in it for me?”  For a good answer, go to the second line above, and multiply it by $5.00.  The answer is $712.00 saved each year.  And that figure doesn’t include improved health and fitness, and deceased wear and tear on the car or truck.

A further advantage would be the increased presence of cyclists on the roads, with a companion decrease in automobiles and light trucks.  More cyclists means we are more visible, and that usually leads to greater acceptance and to more attention being paid to us.  Good all the way around.

This blog’s readership is relatively small.  Please point your friends to this post.  In addition, I’m going to start a series, aimed at the nuts and bolts of transforming automotive driving to “utility cycling.”  In addition, I’ll be carrying this in my weekly email newsletter, the “Tuesday Tome.”

Please do give this one some thought.  Feel free to comment.  Let’s see what we can do on this one.