Gas Prices Low Going into Fourth of July Weekend

There’s good news for those traveling this Fourth of July weekend: Gas prices have stayed relatively cheap, and have even fallen a bit. The national average for gas is $2.629, down from $2.667 a week ago, according to AAA. Diesel matches gas exactly, averaging $2.629 as well.

Compared with last year, this is pretty much a vacationer’s dream. A year ago, gas averaged $4.092 and diesel had hit $4.767. And both were still on their way up.

Strangely, however, AAA predicts a 1.9% drop in travel this weekend even though gas is significantly cheaper. AAA predicts 37.1 million people will travel 50 miles or more from home.

Comments

It's expected that travel will be down with unemployment rates continuing to climb. I'm glad our President is focused on giving away free healthcare instead of creating jobs. I'm sure if he had it his way gas would be $5 a gallon. I should have listened to my Con friends but no I voted for the bozo.

Jeez, Crew and anybody else trying to use kickingtires as a political soap box, knock it off already, go to the plethora of other political sites to express your views! There's already too much inane troll fights on cars.com over cars alone, we simply do not need dumb political commentary here over the price of gasoline.

An Economist from Harvard just said on Bloomberg TV that gas prices will be in the $4.65 - 5.15 range by end of Q4 and that the US will see no meaningful job growth through the end of 2010. His overall point was you can't spend your way out of a financial crisis even if you have the appearance of suppressed oil prices. The Bloomberg host said this guy predicted 8 of the last 9 gas price spikes and 14 out of the last 15 unemployment numbers. I think I'll put off buying a new car until at least the Fall.

@Carson,
Interesting post. I don't know what to think. I think we are going to pay at some point for gas being this cheap. However Gas in the $4.65 - 5.15 range by 4th quarter is outrageous. I hope the Economist you mentioned is wrong this time. At any rate it will be interesting to see what the 4th quarter brings. However nows the best time to buy a car now as the deals are plentiful and overstock is high. This may not be the case by the 4th quarter.

If the economy continues to retract better auto incentives will be introduced so you are better off waiting. I could see gasoline prices increasing to five dollars a gallon in the next six months given the instability of oil production around the globe. It only takes one international incident to send prices sky rocketing.

If gasoline does rise to the $4-5 range, it will completely kill off any hope of economic recovery for years.

The world economy is limping along, and jacking oil prices is going to be like shooting it in both legs.