SOUTH BEND, Ind.- Indiana residents say record-high gasoline prices are forcing them to park their cars, stay home more often and ride their bicycles.
“They’re killing us. It’s too expensive,” said Luis Loredo, a 31-year-old painter from South Bend. “Sometimes I can only buy $5. Five dollars is nothing now. If I don’t have to go, I don’t go nowhere.”
Five dollars was getting drivers a little more than a gallon of regular gasoline as prices hit record highs in Indiana. The AAA Hoosier Motor Club reports the average price of a gallon of regular gas was a record $4.25 on Wednesday, surpassing the mark of $4.19 a gallon set a day earlier. The previous record high was $4.17, set in September 2008 after Hurricane Ike disrupted some oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico.
“It’s shocking,” Russell Faeges, who teaches sociology at the University of Notre Dame, said as he filled his 1991 Ford Escort with gas that cost $4.29 a gallon.
The national average for a gallon of gas reached $3.98 on Thursday, rising for a 44th consecutive day, according to AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service. While the nationwide average for a gallon of gasoline nears $4, the average price has been higher than that in Indiana since April 27.
The average price in Indiana ticked down slightly to $4.24 on Thursday. The metro area in Indiana with the highest cost for a gallon was Bloomington at $4.29. The only metro area in Indiana where gas was below $4.21 was in Evansville, where it was $3.98.
It wasn’t that long ago that gasoline in Indiana was under $3. It cost $2.96 a gallon as recently as Dec. 21. It was $2.58 on Aug. 27 and $2.93 a year ago.
Hoosier Motor Club spokesman Greg Seiter said it is unusual for prices in Indiana to be significantly higher than the national average.
“I don’t know the rationale,” he said.
John Felmy, chief economist for the American Petroleum Institute, said part of the reason was because Indiana’s 7 percent sales tax causes escalating prices to rise even more. State Rep. Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend, last week proposed suspending taxes on gasoline this summer, but Republican negotiators never seriously considered it in the closing days of the General Assembly.
Felmy also said Indiana drivers, especially those in rural areas, hadn’t cut back on driving as much as people elsewhere.
“It seems it’s because people don’t have as much flexibility because they have to drive to work,” he said.
Felmy said part of the higher price was the higher cost of reformulated gasoline in northwest Indiana in the Chicago suburbs. He said he didn’t know why gas was so much less expensive in Evansville. He said the local costs of doing business and competition could be factors.
Many Indiana drivers are searching for ways to save on gas. Jason Lapadat, a 23-year-old who runs his own lawn-care service in South Bend, said he stays home more often, estimates he drives about half as much as normal.
“I just don’t go nowhere,” he said. “I sit at home and miss out on things.”
Lapadat said in recent weeks he’s raised the basic price of cutting a yard from $20 to $35 and so far he hasn’t lost any customers.
“They’ve been understanding,” he said.
Daniel Johnson, a 28-year-old construction worker from South Bend, said he drives his Ford Expedition sport utility vehicle much less than usual, sharing a Chrysler minivan with his wife instead. He also says he, his wife and their five children ride their bikes whenever they can.
“We get on the bikes three or four times a day and go to the park around the neighborhood or wherever,” he said. “I don’t drive unless I have to.”
Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
