Would anyone consider a Sunday or weekend boycott on buying gasoline? How would you do it?

It's been tried in the past and didn't work very well. For one thing, people have to go fill up before it or after it, so the oil companies don't miss much. A new thing has been going around the internet, though and might have more merit. It's to "boycott" the bigger oil companies, such as Exxon and Mobil and buy from smaller oil companies. It also includes only getting 5-10 gallons of gas at a time, so that gas use SEEMS to be lessening. Not only that, but you're giving the smaller "mom and pop" companies a fighting chance against the bigger ones. The idea is that they will have to go down on their gas prices, causing a mini-price-war and thereby lowering the prices. It might actually work, but it has to be put into practice in huge numbers...

Two things:

1) It's not the government that needs to get that particular message; it's the oil companies. The government doesn't set prices, nor should they. (Price controls create shortages.)

2) The oil industry would LOVE it if everyone boycotted gas purchases for one day a week. People would not change their consumption habits permanently; what they'd wind up doing is, as you said, buying their gas during the week. So gas stations could close on Sundays, reducing their operating costs by 1/7, while still selling the same total amount of gas over the course of a week. More money in their pockets.

I would. I live in South Florida and gas is a little over 3 bucks here. I'm spending about $60 a week in gas thats $240 a month. Its only a couple of dollars less than my electric bill. Its ridiculous. I would boycott, but the problem is what the first answerer said, not that many people would actually comply. So, what good would it do? It would have to be a national effort.

I like your theory, but it just won't work. We do need to come up with a theory that will work, and I'm not sure what that is either.

The truth is, gas really isn't that expensive here in the States. I have been in other countries, and it's well over 4 or even 5 dollars a gallon. What do we do when that happens here? We need more public transportation in this country. If you force the government to lower gas prices, you will be messing with the free market economy. At that point, the gas companies will say we are putting them out of business. So, the government will have to bail them out for billions of your tax dollars, so you will pay for it anyway.

Don't take this personally, since it's such a widespread question-- you're not alone, but it's so intuitively ridiculous, I can't believe it lingers on. What good does skipping a day buying gas do if you don't skip a tank's worth of driving? If you're going to skip a day buying but still drive the same amount-- what is the net value? All that happens is that of the Saturday before, or the Monday after there will be a surge of gas sales. Even if you DID skip driving for a few days, you know, and the oil companies know full well you will continue on afterwards as before.

It is not a clear message to the people who are truly setting the price, hedge funds, speculators, investors, and oil consumers such as plastics, rubber, motor oils, and petroleum.

How about we stop buying anything made from plastic? Or galvanized Rubber? What if we stopped investing?

The truth is that Oil is overpriced not because there is not enough oil, but because the threat of the world sanctioning Iran because of their Nuclear Policy, and their retaliation.

You want to drive oil prices lower, either convince speculators that Iran is not a threat, convince the UN Security Council that Iran is not building nuclear weapons, or convince Iran to cease their nuclear program.

Your plan may seem like a nice idea, but it's just going to get politicians involved in some detrimental scheme which will involve either drilling in ANWR, or subsidizing, or my favorite scheme is to eliminate federal taxes on gasoline and raise the income tax, which would redistribute the tax burden on those of us who drive less than 2500 miles per year.

I appreciate your effort, but try to run your errands to and from work, or save them all up and do them all on a single day. Try not to do any unnecessary driving, and see if you can carpool to work and even the grocery store.

But organizing on a ban on weekend purchases of gasoline will prove to be a fool's errand.

It would not help.

People would only buy the gas they need the day before or the day after the boycott. The oil companies would end up selling the same amount of gas anyway.

A better way to give the oil companies less of your hard earned money would be to conserve.

Consolidate trips

Check tire inflation regularly

Keep car tuned up

Change air filter regularly

Carpool

Great idea, but the problem is there are people out there that just do not care and will pay any price to have their freedom. They make enough money that they say oh well what ya gonna do about it and fill there tank up anyway. You would literally have to get about 60% of the entire country to agree and that will juat never happen. Anything less than that would not even make a dent in the BIG MAN's pockets.

To be honest, I don't think one day would really cut it. Nor do I think the government would really care. The gasoline companies would, and if it's for a week or more, then they'll defiantly feel the effects of it. I only fill up about once every two weeks, so I don't think it would really affect me. The hardest thing about doing a nation wide boycott would be to get everyone involved or else it wouldn't work.

Who cares about gas. We Americans Bi#@H about the craziest things. We spend tons of money on fast food and restaurants and other crap and then we turn around an whine about gas prices. If you don't like the gas prices I'm sure life as a whole would be better in a third world country! Change your frivolous spending habits and gas prices will be a drop in the bucket, pocket change. Or just sell your SUV.