Fuel prices take a bite out of drivers' budgets

Eric Montalvo couldn't help but notice this weekend - fewer people were pulling up to the gas pumps at the Shell station in Chinatown where he works.

Gas prices have gone up steadily in the last few days, jumping from an average of $3.42 Saturday to $3.44 yesterday in Philadelphia, and from $3.26 to $3.29 in South Jersey.

With gas prices jumping an average of 16 cents in two weeks nationally, they are as high as they were during the gas crunch of 1981, adjusted for inflation.

Not only were fewer people filling up, Montalvo said yesterday, an employee at the Callowhill Street gas station, but the high cost of gas is also affecting his habits.

"Usually $20 fills my whole tank," said Montalvo, who drives a Toyota Scion. "Last time, I spent $30, and it doesn't even come close to filling it."

Montalvo is driving less and taking SEPTA more, he said. Gas prices have even affected how much he sees his girlfriend, who lives in Bristol.

"Once it's $4 a gallon, I'm going to stop driving altogether," Montalvo vowed. "By the time you leave the gas station now, you have no money in your pocket to go home and pay your bills."

When she eyed the prices at the Chinatown Shell - $3.48 for regular, $3.71 for "V-Power," the highest-grade fuel, Kimberly Smith shrugged and put her credit card into the slot next to the pump.

"I fill my tank up three times a week. I have to," said Smith, who lives in King of Prussia and works at Temple University. "I'm just spending more. A lot more."

The high price of fuel may have inspired thieves to steal two diesel tankers from Royal Petroleum Corp. in Southwest Philadelphia, police said.

At the Audubon Sunoco, on the White Horse Pike in Camden County, Doug Demming marveled that he was pumping just as much gas as he had been all week.

"Wednesday it was $3.19 for regular," Demming said. "Now it's $3.28. I thought at this price people wouldn't be able to afford it, but we don't pump any less."

Still, Demming said, he's hearing from customers more.

"People say that it's too much, that the oil companies are making way too much money on our backs," Demming said.

Tom Ross nodded. A part-time employee at the station, he noticed that "these days, just about every time we get a load of fuel, prices go up."

For Ross, it means fewer vacations.

"I used to go to North Carolina - the Outer Banks - four, five times a year," Ross said. "I know I'm not going this year."

Some tie gas prices to politics, but Ross isn't so sure. Neither is Bill Shinkowitz, another station employee.

"Barack Obama talks a good game, but I don't know," Shinkowitz said.

Hillary Clinton promises she will ease gas prices by investing in alternative energy, increasing vehicle fuel economy standards and freezing additions to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Obama also promises to speed up alternative-fuel production and invest in new technology. Both candidates say they would take on oil companies.

Presumptive Republican nominee John McCain is pushing a "summer gas-tax holiday" and also wants to stop filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

But in New Jersey, Mark Venanzi, who spent $50 to put half a tank of gas in his Ford truck, said that although he was a Clinton supporter, he wasn't optimistic any candidate could fix his problems at the pump.

Venanzi uses the truck, a Buick, for work as a salesman, and he also drives a motorcycle and several antique cars. He's going to drive no matter how much a gallon of gas costs him, he said, but it sure would be nice if something gave.

"They've got to move the taxes around," Venanzi said.

Back in the gas station office, Ross said he didn't get it.

"It doesn't cost them any more to pump a barrel of oil today than it did yesterday," he said.

But with global demand increasing, prices are bound to jump no matter the cost of supply.