Continuing my posts about fuel stations today

Nearly every fuel station charges us a stupidity tax. Why must we pay an extra penny for every gallon we buy? The industry is not fooling anyone and the practice is so engrained in our culture we do not even mention the .009 when we discuss gas prices we just mention the numbers in the larger print on the signs.  I know there are reasons for why things are the way we see them today.

I know this sick twisted tradition dates back to when a penny was worth something significant on its own in the 1920s.  Eighty-Eight years later, we do not receive any savings off this practice.  Let’s get into the 21st century here; the stock market did it with their switch to decimals from fractions.  The other argument is the federal gas tax is currently 18.4 cents on every gallon, my sales tax on all other goods is often fractional too, say 6.5% or 7.xx% whatever when everything gets totaled up the final price is rounded up one penny.  Gas purchases can be computed the same way, say the gas tax is half a percent; it really comes out that low at current prices. Multiply my whole tank by the .5% tax and round up to the nearest penny, I would even vote for a tax increase if it were actually going to improving the road system, maintaining the roads and improving congestion.

This has to stop, just because we have done something since the 1920s does not make it the best way to do things. There was a CITGO station in Gainesville that regularly didn't charge the "we're sticking it to you because we can fee" whenever they were not charging the extra penny I would fill up even if I didn't need to, to support the practice (rewarding good behavior they were .009 cheaper than the Shell station next door).  The only reason I stopped shopping them was their lack of top tier certification at the time.

Am I going to write my congressional representative or do anything about it?  No unless enough of you want to, not a fight I am getting into by myself.  I am just going to stop using gasoline eventually and switch to a battery electric vehicle.

Kacey Green
KaceyGreen.com
"This post brought to you by Tangent's randomly firing synapses."

​Update 9 years ago as of March 2021

I've almost achieved this goal, my daily Driver is now a 2012 Chevrolet Volt, next will be a pure EV once one can practically meet all the range requirements to be my only car. The Volt fills this role the best of any current production car at the moment, it isn't too expensive (but the payments are quite noticeable right now), in my daily use it is 98-99% EV. The only times it runs out of juice and fires up the generator are when I'm going to work in cold weather, or rainy weather with a headwind, the last situation that causes the car to run out of EV range is when I pack my schedule too full. That last one will become less frequent when I get a Level 2 EVSE. (Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment aka charging station)