One word: Speculators.
There's also the price point.
The price point is $4.
At $3 a gallon, Americans just grin and bear it, suck it up, and — while complaining profusely — keep driving like crazy. At $4, it is a world transformed. Americans become rational creatures. Mass transit ridership is at a 50-year high. Driving is down 4 percent. (Any U.S. decline is something close to a miracle.) Hybrids and compacts are flying off the lots. SUV sales are in free fall.
The wholesale flight from gas guzzlers is stunning in its swiftness, but utterly predictable. Everything has a price point. Remember that “love affair” with SUVs? Love, it seems, has its price too.
It cost me just shy of 50 bucks to fill up my little Ford Focus Wednesday (about 12 gallons). The car gets about 33 mpg on the highway (not much help in the traffic-clogged Metroplex), but filling up more than once a week gives any driver pause.
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