“I’m not driving to work anymore,” says Slave Lake resident Susan Moore.
Moore rides her bicycle to work at the Lakeland building in the summer months anyway, but she has been in the habit of driving in the winter. But the recent big jump in gas prices has triggered a response she was probably considering anyway.
“For me it’s heading in the right direction,” she says. “It’s silly how dependent we are on vehicles. I’m personally breaking that in myself.”
Other Slave Lakers may be thinking along the same lines, but there’s not exactly a stampede of walkers and bikes out there. Nor is there a rush to trade in big vehicles for smaller ones. Local car dealerships haven’t even had very many people inquiring about fuel efficiency.
“I’m quite surprised about that,” says Doug Babiy of SL Ford. “I think it’s still too new.”
The story is similar at Whitecap Motors, where Sales Manager Russell Martin says he hasn’t seen as much interest in fuel-efficient vehicles as he expected.
‘We’ve had a few people looking for smaller cars,” he says.
Brenda and Glen Ballard of Slave Lake are among them, although they’ve chosen an import over a domestic. They’re swapping their van for a Volkswagen that burns diesel fuel, and they aren’t the only ones.
“They put us on a list,” Brenda says. “We have to wait three or four months.”
Brenda figures the diesel car will gain 30 miles per gallon over the gas-burning van, if VW claims are accurate.
One sure way to save on fuel costs - for those who work and live in town - is to leave the car parked.
“The cost of my bike is paid off with a couple of tanks of gas,” says Moore. For her, the trip downtown from her southeast home is also quite a bit shorter when she doesn’t drive.
“I was probably going to revert to driving in the winter,” she says. “But with this gas price - no way.”

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