Americans are running out of gas and being stranded on the side of the road as national gas prices soar to $5 a gallon, according to AAA.
Surging gas prices have led to Americans abandoning their cars on the road because they only have enough money for a few gallons of gas.
The automobile club AAA fielded over 50,000 out-of-gas calls from stranded motorists in April, an increase of 32% from the same time last year.
So far this year, more than 200,000 motorists nationwide have been stranded on the side of the road, AAA said, according to the NY Post. During the same period last year — when the price of a gallon of gas was around $3 — just 154,000 motorists reported running out of gas.
“After a blistering week of gas prices jumping in nearly every town, city, state and area possible, more bad news is on the horizon. It now appears not if, but when, we’ll hit that psychologically critical $5 national average,” GasBuddy analyst Patrick De Haan said in a blog post earlier this week.
Gas prices have already surged past $7 a gallon on the West coast.
In response to complaints about high gas prices, the Biden-Harris administration advised Americans to trade in their combustion engine cars for electric cars.
The Biden administration blames the Ukraine-Russia conflict for the high gas prices in America and Joe Biden says America should end its dependence on fossil fuel.
Biden has said that the Russia-Ukraine war “should motivate to us accelerate to a transition of clean energy”.
Nearly 80% of US energy consumption comes from fossil fuels (oil, gas and coal).
