Ways to protest high gas prices

High gas prices are hurting the American consumer in numerous ways. The obvious ways are the fact that it is costing us way too much to fill up our cars. However, the not so obvious ways it is hurting us are by causing prices on nearly everything else to go up rapidly because of delivery and transportation costs. It's amazing that there hasn't been some sort of organized protest of these high gas prices because something needs to be done.

There are numerous ways we, as consumers, could protest the high gas prices, but very few that would have any real effect. There have been numerous calls for one day gas boycotts, but these have proven completely ineffective because not enough people participate and one day isn't enough to put a significant dent in the pocketbooks of big oil.

More effective uses of our time and resources would be to write letters to our elected officials explaining the effects the high gas prices are having on us and asking that something be done. After all, the political powers that be have much more control over economic matters than we average citizens do.

We need to also start taking a good, hard look at our elected officials before we elect them. If we put people in positions of power who have strong ties to large oil companies and whose wealth arises from them or whose campaign funding comes from them, we wind up in the situation we are in now where the average person has to think long and hard before deciding between purchasing a gallon of milk for his family or a gallon of gas to get to work.

As average citizens, about the only thing we can do that would make a serious impact is to reduce our overall use of gasoline significantly. We need to go back to the concept of carpooling and do things like utilize public transportation to put fewer vehicles on the road. In addition to helping lower gasoline use, these things would be beneficial for the environment as well by reducing vehicle emissions.

Other ways to reduce our individual use of gasoline are to plan out where we have to go in a day's time and combine as many errands into one trip as possible. Perhaps you can pick up your dry cleaning on your way to pay electric bill. And, maybe you can delay doing both of those things until it's time to pick up your kids at soccer practice. Also, avoid unnecessary trips altogether. If you can wait until tomorrow on your way home from work to pick up that loaf of bread, don't run to the store tonight to pick it up. Instead of wasting gas in a long drive through line, park, shut the car off and go inside. These may seem like small things, but if each of us did them, they would amount to significant decreases in gasoline use.

The best way to make an impact on a corporate giant is to impact their bottom line. If their high priced product is suddenly not selling as well, they will usually lower the price as an incentive to sell more. It's the simple law of supply and demand. We need to all band together and start using it to demand more reasonable gas prices.