The 5 a.m. CBS Radio newscast led with it: according to the Lundberg Survey, average US retail gasoline prices had hit their highest level ever. The Barrel heard the news en route to LaGuardia Airport for a one-day trip to Minneapolis. The weather was good, the roads were clear at that hour. Great driving weather.
There has been a lot of disagreement about whether these retail prices are flattening demand. The Energy Information Administration and the American Petroleum Institute have what might be described as a set of dueling statistics on the issue, with the EIA seeing growth and the API seeing little to none. Newspaper and broadcasts are filled with anecdotes about what people are doing to cut back their driving to reduce gasoline consumption.
So as once on the road, it was time for a little experiment: drive at 60 mph (that being possible only because of the early hour). We recall a quote by one energy analyst about a year ago who said he forced himself to drive at that speed for a few weeks, and closely monitored the changes in his fuel efficiency -- he said the percentage improvement was in double digits.
Our experiment consisted simply of observing how many cars passed the Barrelmobile while it was going 60, and how many it passed. The score: more than 100 to zero. Heading back home that evening, under largely the same road conditions, the only difference is that the Barrel actually managed to pass two or three drivers. Beyond that, everyone zipped right by (including two motorcycle riders who were traveling easily in excess of 100).
It may have been unscientific, and the sample is small. But if a large cross-section of Americans are reducing their speed as part of an effort to slow their gasoline consumption, there was no evidence of it on the highways of suburban New York, early on the morning of May 21.
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