Gasoline prices fell below four dollars a gallon today, dipping to their lowest level since March, according to the American Automobile Association. Today’s average of $3.99 a gallon nationally and $3.61 in Louisiana is a dollar cheaper than the June high.
AAA Louisiana’s Don Redman says it’s a direct reflection of supply and demand.
“People were willing to travel for the summer, up from say Memorial Day to the Fourth of July, and after that the higher prices had such an impact on the family budget they started pulling back,” Redman says.
He added that if drivers become used to the lower prices they might start driving more and that could send prices higher again.
“It might push those prices back up again. We’ll just have to wait and see on that,” he says.
In a March survey, drivers told AAA they would drive much less if gas prices kept rising.
“So we followed up fairly recently with another survey saying, ‘Okay we reached those hypotheticals, those hypotheticals became reality, what did you do? And 88 percent said, ‘we drove less,’” Redman added.
The drop in gasoline prices comes as the US government is reporting a slight drop in inflation.
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