Drivers carp at price, but few alter their habits

That's the message from government statistics showing that demand for gasoline is only just starting to level off even as refinery outages and tight supplies have sent pump prices soaring by 43 percent since the end of January.

Prices for regular gas on Tuesday averaged $3.09 nationally and in Arizona and Phoenix, while prices in Tucson averaged $2.99.

And brace yourself: Experts say with gas already closing in on $4 a gallon in Chicago and San Francisco ahead of the peak summer driving season, higher prices could be in the cards.

Most Americans are locked into their driving habits, and can do little to alter their fuel-buying patterns when prices rise, experts say. For example, the number of workers with commutes lasting longer than 60 minutes grew by almost 50 percent between 1990 and 2000, according to Census Department data.

Weekly gasoline demand in April increased as much as 1.9 percent over the same weeks in 2006 even as the average national price of a gallon of gasoline grew from $2.71 to $2.97 by the end of the month, according to Energy Information Administration data.

Experts disagree over how high prices have to rise before consumers are shocked into driving less — at least temporarily.

"We might actually see some reaction at $3.50 (a gallon)" nationally, said Larry Compeau, executive officer of the Society for Consumer Psychology and professor of marketing and consumer psychology at Clarkson University in Potsdam, N.Y.

The tipping point is more likely $4 a gallon, said Lars Perner, assistant professor of clinical marketing at the University of Southern California's business school.

There was a definite consumer reaction in September 2005 after Hurricane Katrina outages pushed prices above $3 a gallon for the first time. Demand dropped as much as 6.5 percent. "There was . . . something significant psychologically about the $3 barrier," said Perner.

Since then, consumers seem to have adapted, with demand rising throughout a brief period of prices above $3 a gallon last summer.

"People complain about higher oil prices . . . but they still drive their cars, they still buy their SUVs, they don't want to carpool," said Fadel Gheit, an energy analyst at Oppenheimer & Co.

While higher gas prices haven't done much to cut demand, they also don't appear to have had much effect on consumers' car-buying behavior, according to Autodata Corp. Sales of lights trucks and SUVs declined 3 percent in April, less than the 12 percent slump in car sales. Light trucks and SUVs continue to make up the majority of vehicle sales in the U.S., or about 53 percent.