COLORADO SPRINGS — Believe it or not, experts say there actually isn’t a gas shortage right now. But there potentially could be if you don’t treat this situation the right way.
We told you how people have been having a hard time finding gas in the Pueblo and Canon City areas lately. And on Sunday, News 5 found several gas stations in Colorado Springs also out of gas.
But experts say this is a very temporary issue, and panic buying would only make things worse.
Take the following situation for example...
You’re running low on gas, so you decide to go fill up at your nearest gas station. But when you show up, that gas station is out of gas. You tell all your friends about the hard time you had finding a station with gas.
Now your friends, whose cars still have plenty of gas in them, decide to go top off their tanks, worried there may be a gas shortage looming.
The problem is, those friends (who didn’t really need to go fill up) have now run your next nearest gas station out of gas.
The cycle repeats itself, and now you really have a gas shortage on your hands.
“There is no gas shortage until consumers believe that there is one,” AAA spokesperson Skyler McKinley said.
It’s why experts like him want to be very clear about the reason why you’re seeing some pumps bagged off right now.
“Because there’s a driver shortage for trucks, it takes a little longer to get those kinks ironed out,’ McKinley said.
Since drivers are in short supply, he says they’ve had a hard time catching up with some routine pipeline disruptions recently, which is why some, but not all, gas stations have been out of fuel at times.
He says this is not akin to fuel shortages like we saw in the 1970s. In fact, it's not even a fuel shortage.
“There’s plenty of gas in the system around the country, plenty of fuel,” he said.
It’s just taking a bit longer to get that fuel to stations.
“If you need gas, you can get it,” he said. “There’s no reason to go out and buy gas you don’t need. And if for any reason your favorite or closest service station doesn’t have gas today, know that they will in the next couple days.”
So keep it simple. only fill up if you actually need to.
