A Good Thing About Gas Prices

July 24, 2008 – 8:34 am – No Comment

Where I live, it costs me $45 to fill up my Scion tC. It’s absolutely absurd. However, two professors (Michael Morrisey of UAB-Birmingham and David Grabowski of Harvard Med School) recently did a study that found that every 10% increase in the price of gas, there was a 2.3% decrease in auto deaths.

Here’s my take on this, people have to pay for groceries rather than gas. They take fewer trips and therefore, are not on the road as much. However, there are still plenty of awful drivers on the road. They will continue to use their cell phones, drive like there isn’t anyone else on the road and not pay any amount of attention as they make left hand turns.

On another note, I suppose accidents will be going down a bit more, because oil is trading at $147 a barrel today. lame. I would like to speculate for a moment, because it seems like every time I hear something about oil prices, it’s bad. I think there will be peace in the middle east starting tomorrow. Oil production will be through the roof, and prices will fall below $50 a barrel again. That is my speculation. Now…only if someone believed me, lol.