The Things You’ll Do For Gas: Surprising!

Over 600 of you have taken our ultra-scientific gas prices survey, and the results have raised more questions than they’ve answered. It turns out that over twice as many of you—12%!—would actually resort to breaking the law to get fuel before you’d even consider earning extra gas money by legal means. And in related civil-disobedience news, an additional 16% have vowed to riot when we hit the 4-dollar mark, giving shopkeeps and local governments everywhere reason to lose sleep (demographically, a disproportionate number of these pledged rioters are located in Canada—we’d better quit calling them "nice"!).

Still, you aren’t by and large a lawless crowd: astoundingly, the number one most popular form of resistance to $4 gas will be to "quit showing off and mashing the gas pedal at every opportunity." Really? You guys, drive more conservatively? I guess I should be relieved, but damn. I’d have thought that punching the go-pedal would be the last thing you’d be willing to give up. Speaking of sacrifices, cruising for the sheer fun of it is something you’re much less willing to relinquish (only 4% of you would), and a mere 5% would trade in your one ride for an econo. Least popular of all was relocation, at 1%—for some perplexing reason, nearly 5 times more of you would give up your current ride before you’d move houses. A more telling stat is this one: trailing only a smidgen of a percent behind granny-driving, with the second-highest number of votes, is the ever-popular pissing and moaning. Which means that, for all intents and purposes, a combined 40% of you passive little oysters plan to do essentially nothing about gas prices. Personally, I was surprised that multiple-car ownership appealed to only 9% of you, since it allows you to have your cake and eat it too, using your most gas-sipping ride for the daily grind while saving your guzzler for bombing around on weekends. Anyway, thanks for playing—now what we might do collectively to forestall the inevitable? I kinda liked Dan’s idea of a week-long gas boycott.