Gas Prices Aren’t Deterring Summer Travelers

    Nearly 38 million people will travel this Memorial Day weekend, and most of them will drive on America's roads and highways — a record number of travelers, according to AAA.

    High gasoline prices? Not much of a problem, it seems.

    "People are traveling just as much," said Philip Reed, the consumer advice editor at Edmunds.com, an automotive Web site. "There is much complaining about fuel prices, but there is still no substitute for the car and for the family vacation. That's a priority that people aren't willing to sacrifice yet."

    By Labor Day, drivers will have logged more than 800 billion miles, or 8.6 billion miles a day, and will have consumed 36 billion gallons of fuel crisscrossing the United States, according to the Energy Department.

    That is why Memorial Day to Labor Day accounts for the peak in gasoline consumption, why refineries have been scrambling to prepare in time and why gasoline imports have risen to near records to make up for shortfalls. Drivers seem undeterred.


And that, my friends, is one of the reason for high gas prices: the demand for unneccessary travel.