"Attention fuel consumers, unfortunately we are all out of the
Disney collector cups. Have a nice day!"
Disney collector cups. Have a nice day!"
Have you ever noticed that the Wednesday before every long weekend, gasoline prices always seem to increase? Well here in Alberta it happens all the time and this time it wasn't a penny or two; it was a seven cent increase in one day. Oil companies say that summer time sees an increase in fuel consumption on long weekends, so gasoline prices are adjusted accordingly. Well this is Fall, it's getting colder and we are clearly out of summer vacation mode, yet the price still increased.
I read on a Petro-Canada website that "Consumers may pay closer attention to gasoline prices when they fill up before or during a long weekend trip, however industry data shows no such pre-long weekend price increase trend." (Shell has the same information on their website, almost word for word) . I think whoever wrote that has a company gas card and never bothers to look at the prices at the pump when they fill up. Anyone that doesn't have a oil company logo on their pay stub will tell you that this is a load of *rap! Out of the fifteen years I've been driving, I've only seen prices not go up on a long weekend once. Perhaps the guy who changes the price on the sign at one gas station called in hungover, and the other stations just matched them; who knows.
What I do know is that it's wrong to increase the price; it's borderline profiteering. Everyone uses gasoline in one way or another and the oil companies know that. There is very little we can do to stop these insane increases every long weekend. No amount of protesting, or boycotting will ever amount to any changes. If you boycott one gas station, only the people employed by that station will suffer. All we can do is pay the piper and get our precious gasoline. You might as well sign up for points cards and get something overly priced for "free?". It could be worse; we could be fighting off bandits for "juice" in the wastelands and having Mel Gibson as our only source of hope for the future...yeesh.
Readers:
Do gas prices increase on long weekends in your neck of the woods?
5 comments:
Do gas prices increase in my area? Damn straight.
Do I try NOT to buy any if I can help it? For sure!
Damn I need to own more Suncor and get some Exxon Mobil :)
Yeah I have to travel 1000km round trip this weekend and I'll be paying part of someone's college tuition, guaranteed.
How many major oil companies are there.....somebody told me 4 or 5 with Exxon (Esso) and Shell being the biggest.
In the past I've heard people say "don't buy gas on certain days"....that doesn't solve anything......BUT....
What would happen if everybody in Canada or even North America boycotted just one of those major oil companies for an extended period of time until they were forced to drop prices or at least keep them down on long weekends. Pick the worst offending oil company....Just a thought.
Oh how I love MadMax (I am guessing that is where the picture is from). I find that Gas goes up as well on long weekends--I am just happy our dollar is doing so well or our gas would be a lot more :S
I am going to add this to my weekend reading list! Thanks for the post :)
Yeah I'm a huge Mad Max fan.
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