The rise in gasoline prices has affected the daily lives and habits of US residents. For many decades, America was a country of long distances and powerful cars. But the saying 'In England three hundred years ago is recent, in America three hundred miles is not far' has recently been losing relevance.
The first to be forced to adjust their vehicle usage patterns were government organizations that cannot count on additional funding. Each police station, fire station, or public school must make the allocated fuel funds last for the entire budget period, so they have to resort to tricks.
Police in some states have had to abandon a popular trick they used to reduce the number of minor crimes. Previously, officers would drive home in their patrol cars and park them in their neighborhoods. This created a sense of police presence nearby and, according to statistics, was quite effective. Now in cities in Ohio and Texas, the number of cars used for actual patrolling has been cut. Some areas have to be patrolled on foot, which slows response times. In Pennsylvania and Iowa, bicycle patrols have been reinstated. Even in New York and Washington, the number of mounted police on the streets has increased: a horse is more environmentally friendly than a car and cheaper.
Firefighters, especially in California, have it harder. Wildfires in the state cost significantly more than usual. Finally, schools are also looking for ways to save on diesel fuel. Schools are changing school bus routes, so some students will have to walk a bit farther to the stop each day in the new school year.
For adults, it is much harder to avoid additional expenses. According to reports from the American Public Transportation Association, public transit ridership has risen significantly this year. The higher the price goes, the more Americans decide to leave their cars in the garage and commute by train, bus, or subway. It should be noted that even earlier, suburban residents had popular so-called 'car pools', where neighbors would commute to the city in one car to save fuel, taking turns using each family's car for this purpose.
But the public transit network in the US is arranged in such a way that not every American can get to work without a car. So for some, it makes sense to find a job closer to home. Experts predict a boom in remote employment, since modern technology allows many professionals to work as freelancers via the Internet from home. The prospects of distance learning are also highly rated. Meanwhile, a survey on the eve of Independence Day showed that Americans have developed a tendency to spend weekends not far from home – driving far has become expensive.
Private companies are also trying to save on fuel using various tricks. The most unfavorable situation is for taxi drivers – their profits decline as prices rise. Stores are canceling free delivery of purchased goods, large corporations are not sending employees on business trips unnecessarily (jet fuel prices and, accordingly, airfare have also risen), and falling demand for sports cars has forced sellers to lower prices. By the way, manufacturers of hybrid cars, on the contrary, note an increase in demand for this type of car and expect further growth in interest in this technology.
Some are trying to profit from high fuel prices. And we are not talking about energy companies. Ingenuity was shown, for example, by the organizers of a lottery in Florida, who offered a lifetime supply of gasoline as one of the prizes (among other prizes, a year's supply of gasoline), and the owners of a brothel in Nevada, offering valuable clients a gas card as a bonus.
After the oil price spikes in 1973 and 1979, Americans had already faced the introduction of additional taxes on large cars and panic in society. So Americans have experience adapting to high and even very high gasoline prices.