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NoDirectionHome Rookie Author Orange County Posts:14 Points:343,170 Joined:Oct 2005	Message Posted: Jun 6, 2012 2:45:44 PM Ignore NoDirectionHome Report Abuse Gas map colors change from dark red to dark green as the reported gas price declines. What is wrong with the current approach is that the price range for each color does not remain constant over time. Therefore high tax states such as California will always be orange, red, or dark red whereas South Carolina, with very low taxes, will always have green colors shown. If gas prices drop another dollar per gallon so California is at $3.14/gln and SC is at, say $2.14/gln - then is it so wrong to show both places in shades of green? My use of the map is to see whether gasoline is expensive or not in different parts of the US - not to see if it cheaper or more expensive than the national average. Compare this with weather maps - the colors reflect the actual temperatures - not the deviation of temperatures between cities.

NoDirectionHome

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Orange County

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Message Posted: Jun 6, 2012 2:45:44 PM

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Gas map colors change from dark red to dark green as the reported gas price declines. What is wrong with the current approach is that the price range for each color does not remain constant over time. Therefore high tax states such as California will always be orange, red, or dark red whereas South Carolina, with very low taxes, will always have green colors shown. If gas prices drop another dollar per gallon so California is at $3.14/gln and SC is at, say $2.14/gln - then is it so wrong to show both places in shades of green? My use of the map is to see whether gasoline is expensive or not in different parts of the US - not to see if it cheaper or more expensive than the national average.

Compare this with weather maps - the colors reflect the actual temperatures - not the deviation of temperatures between cities.

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scoutmaster Champion Author Pittsburgh Posts:81,297 Points:3,253,620 Joined:Mar 2003	Message Posted: Jun 9, 2012 6:08:27 AM Ignore scoutmaster Report Abuse I think the map works the way it was designed to work. I use it when I travel and find it very helpful.
jrsva Champion Author Virginia Posts:9,857 Points:1,613,225 Joined:Jan 2006	Message Posted: Jun 8, 2012 9:51:40 PM Ignore jrsva Report Abuse I believe the suggestion is that a color on the map should represent a fixed price range on the map and not vary over time. Most weather reporting services use this type of system because they are dealing with a relatively fixed range of temperatures from year to year. Typical summer temps will be shown in various shades of orange and red, while winters will be shades of blue and violet up north and, perhaps, greens and yellows down south. To apply this to the gas-price map would require knowing the long-term range that prices will cover. There is a lower limit but there is no upper limit for prices like there is for weather. If one set dark red to mean $4.75 to $5 gas, what would be done if prices spiked to $6 or $7 or more? Further, if one chose a color scheme to cover all historical price ranges as well as probable future prices, the increments would be so large that at any given time all of the colors on the map would be similar. This would not be a practical system; the current scheme works quite well. NDH, if I have misinterpreted your ides, please respond.
CampKohler Champion Author Sacramento Posts:9,463 Points:1,563,165 Joined:May 2007	Message Posted: Jun 7, 2012 1:38:05 AM Ignore CampKohler Report Abuse This suggestion has been added to the Suggestion Tracking List as a new subject.
Gas_Buddy Champion Author Maryland Posts:25,977 Points:3,035,040 Joined:Aug 2004	Message Posted: Jun 6, 2012 4:25:28 PM Ignore Gas_Buddy Report Abuse Include me with Scrapheap and maxstar's comments. Unless I'm (we're) missing something in what you're suggesting, I think the map does what it's supposed to do (or at least what Gas Buddy says it's supposed to do).
maxstar Champion Author Chicago Posts:18,490 Points:810,520 Joined:Feb 2011	Message Posted: Jun 6, 2012 3:56:14 PM Ignore maxstar Report Abuse Scrapheap is correct. The map would be very confusing and rendered useless for comparing prices across the US, if a green section in California were far more expensive than a green section in South Carolina and a green section in Illinois meant something else again.
Scrapheap Champion Author Virginia Posts:14,551 Points:2,359,055 Joined:Sep 2006	Message Posted: Jun 6, 2012 3:13:03 PM Ignore Scrapheap Report Abuse NoDirectionHome wrote > My use of the map is to see whether gasoline is expensive or not in different parts of the US - not to see if it cheaper or more expensive than the national average. The current implementation does just that. It tells you where gas is more or less expensive. If the entire country was listed in different shades of green, it would be less useful and more difficult to interpret. [Edited by: Scrapheap at 6/6/2012 6:13:41 PM EST]