A Year of Driving
A year ago today I bought my first post-stroke tank of gas. The 9 months prior to my stroke I did not have a car — my motorized transportation was a 49cc Honda Metropolitan scooter that got around 90 miles per gallon. A year ago I felt guilty about going back to driving a car. I’m over the guilt although I want to, someday, go back to not having a car.
So the day I buy gas for the first time in nearly six months just happens to have been the day gas prices peaked in St. Louis. I paid $3.979/gallon for basic unleaded. By December 30th I paid a low of $1.339/gallon – a 66% drop. I tracked each fuel purchase and my mpg on an application on my iPhone:
Cold winters and recent a/c use took a toll on my average MPG. My last fill-up was on a return trip from Chicago – 70mph with a/c. Pretty good numbers.
During the year I drove 7,200 miles which included a trip to Oklahoma and the recent one to Chicago. Take out those two road trips and I drove about 5,500 miles around town. Admittedly I have a big advantage of working from home. But I also have a compact life shopping locally as well as combining trips. Even as the price of gas dropped I continued to conserve.
The above chart shows the price per gallon that I paid over the last year. Yes, I’m a nerd by charting this but I’m a visual person. As we seen the price per gallon has steadily increased in 2009. It is still a long way from where it was a year ago – the climb up is much slower than the drop off. But the prices from last summer will return at some point. There will be a point in a year or two where $4/gallon seems low.
By the end of 2010 I hope to have another scooter — perhaps a hybrid or all-electric scooter. Like before, I’ll go a couple of years having a car and a scooter before going to scooter-only. This time I will be able to join Enterprise’s WeCar car-sharing program for those times when I need/want a car.
- Steve Patterson
