Philadelphia Area Gas Prices Set Record High Over Weekend
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The war in Ukraine has led to skyrocketing gas prices. Drivers are feeling the pain, and there is fear prices could go even higher if the U.S. bans importing oil from Russia.
According to AAA, the Philadelphia area set a record high Sunday for gas price average at $4.22 per gallon. The five-county area increased seven cents overnight, and 43 cents in the past week.
Pennsylvania set a record Saturday and it keeps growing. The average in the state stands at $4.17 a gallon.
In South Jersey and Delaware, the average is $4 a gallon.
Truck driver Ray Callahan was blunt on paying north of $5 for a gallon of diesel.
"Shocked is the word. Yeah, I'm in shock. We went from four-something to now we're almost at $5. It's crazy," Callahan said.
The frustration is shared by miserable motorists shelling out more money, many lamenting a what's next attitude.
"It's scary times. Like we spent the last two years living in a pandemic, now we're dealing with the repercussions from stuff three-quarters of the way around the world that we don't really have any control over as like a regular, everyday person," motorist Chris Sloan said.
Volatility, war, oil embargoes. We heard talk of greener options and bringing online the country's own vast energy resources.
"When we rely on other countries for our resources, for our independence, it could be a dim future for us all," Daniel Silvestri said.
West Chester University business professor Dr. Matthew McMahon says higher prices are predominantly driven by a simple principle.
"Oil really is a global market and so when you shut off someone like Russia, even if we don't directly buy a lot of oil from Russia, there's a lot of spillovers across all the other markets -- the European oil market and so on. When you're cutting off supply that's simply going to bump up the price that you see across the world," McMahon said.
AAA says this could only be the beginning as summer, the peak driving season, is months away.
Click here to find the cheapest gas near you.
CBS3's Joe Holden contributed to this report.
