Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Filled Up

My car isn't completely run out of gas yet, but I still filled it up today anyway. Why? Well, it's a long weekend this weekend here in Canada, and that usually inspires an uptick or two in the price of fuel.

Compounding my forecasted uptick in gas prices this weekend is the fact that a number of oil producing sites in Fort McMurray have been completely shut down due to the wild fires raging in Northern Alberta.

On that note, my heart goes out to the residents of Slave Lake. The town was all but destroyed in a matter of hours when the wild fires jumped the highway and quickly spread through the town. If you would like to make a donation to assist the displaced, and now homeless, residents of Slave Lake, donations can be made to the Red Cross.

For everyone else:

Increased Demand + Decreased Supply = Increased Price 

This is my little microeconomics kick in the butt to try and save you a couple bucks.

2 comments:

banclothing said...

On an unrelated car note... How does your car perform in the winter? Do you have any problems with getting stuck?

Cassie said...

If you would consider driving a mini cooper in the winter, you'd have no problem with a smart car. It actually has quite reasonable ground clearance, and it doesn't have any more problem starting in cold weather than any other vehicle. The only problem I've found that is unique to smart cars is that you can get stuck sideways in deep ruts due to the wheel spacing. I was dumbstruck the first time it happened.

The largest problem I've found with it happens during the spring in deep slushy snow. It's exceptionally light, so it doesn't stick to the road as well as a heavier vehicle would. This can largely be mitigated though smart driving though. As for getting stuck while parked, lighter car = easier to push out. It doesn't get stuck any more often than other cars.

I've found that most winter driving issues are more of a driver problem than I vehicle problem. Last winter I navigated a snow buried road in my smart car that another driver abandoned their SUV on. To each their own.