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Overheated about gas prices? See you in South America

By GENE SHALIT
Published September 3, 2005

All across the country - at work and over the dinner table - the public's irate conversation is fueled by the price of gas. Rocketing costs are a high test of drivers' patience. Frayed tempers are a good gauge of rising road rage.

When I was a kid we could fill our tank at five gallons for a buck.

Now we're gouged by oil giants who get increased mileage out of any excuse to kick up their profits, such as: a heat wave in Alaska kept Eskimos from reporting to work at refineries . . . or the new king of Saudi Arabia suffered a camel bite . . . or a tanker in the Bosporus failed to stay in the strait and narrows.

Petroleum barons know how to fuel all of the people all of the time, and as far as they're concerned, oil's well.

But take a look at this: America's prices would overjoy drivers in most other countries. As of Wednesday, here's the average price in 10 countries, translated into dollars per gallon:

England: $6.20;

Germany: $6.04;

Italy: $5.91;

France: $5.73;

Ireland: $4.78;

Japan: $4.61;

Russia: $1.95;

Kuwait City: 69 cents;

Egypt: 59 cents;

Venezuela: 12 cents (I'm moving to Caracas).

So the next time you grind your teeth when you pump gas, think of the countries where the user of fuel and his money are soon parted.

Gene Shalit, a writer and critic, lives in New England.

[Last modified September 3, 2005, 01:20:24]