New England Public Radio

Malloy Threatens Legal Action Against AAA

Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy is threatening legal action over a decision by a regional auto club to stop providing driver’s license services to non-members.

AAA Northeast, which operates in Fairfield, New Haven and Litchfield Counties, said driver’s license transactions have nearly doubled over the past year, half of them involving non-members.  That’s as motorists look to avoid long DMV wait times.

Spokesperson Fran Mayko says that comes at the expense of the club’s 600,000 dues-paying members.

“We’re doing a disservice to our members by not being able to handle their needs in a timely manner,” Mayko said.

Mayko says federal REAL ID requirements add more time to each transaction.

But Governor Malloy on Monday called the decision unacceptable. In a letter to AAA Northeast’s CEO, the governor said the auto club has a contract with the state to provide license services to all.

AAA Allied, which serves the greater Hartford region, saidit will continue providing license services to members and non-members alike.

 

Analysts: Gasoline Prices To Continue Upward Trend For Foreseeable Future.

The cost of filling up your vehicle’s gas tank continues to go up. In Massachusetts, motorists are paying an average of $3.73 per gallon for regular fuel, a 3-cent increase over last week, and a 28-cent jump over the past month. Energy analysts like Mike Lynch say the current price spike reflects an increase in the global price of crude oil. Lynch, a petroleum market consultant based in Amherst, says that’s due in turn, to a combination of factors. Among them are continuing sanctions against Iran that have cut oil exports by a million barrels a day, and commodity traders being bullish on the state of the US economy.
“The traders in New York look at the possibility of economic recovery and think that that’s going to tighten the market. And so they’ve bid up the crude oil price quite a bit. Second to that is some refinery troubles on the east coast and the Midwest that have just tightened some local markets.”
Like the shutdown of a New Jersey refinery, which is expected to cut gasoline supplies to New England by 7½%, driving prices even higher, according to Aaron Kupek, a spokesman for AAA’s Allied Group in Connecticut. The average there stands at $3.96/gallon, the fourth highest in the country. Kupek says he won’t be surprised to see regular gas eclipse the $4.00 mark in the very near future.
“When you move into the spring, you might see some moderation and some leveling off of the prices. And then, of course, you’re heading into the busy summer travel season where you have more of a demand for gasoline. And at least here in Connecticut, come July 1st, you’re going to see that increase in the gross receipts tax which, if you look at current prices, would add another four cents a gallon to the price of gasoline.”
Kupek says motorists will probably have to resign themselves to seeing $4.00/gallon gas become the new normal. But analyst Mike Lynch says prices have spiked before only to drop significantly, and calls the prospect of $4.00 gasoline as the new normal “slightly better than a ranked guess”.

 

AAA Says More Americans Will Take To Roads And Skies This Holiday Season

More than 93 million Americans nationwide are expected to travel 50 miles or more for the year-end holidays, an increase over Thanksgiving and last year’s holiday period according to the AAA. About 3.5 million New Englanders will travel 50 miles or more to holiday destinations, many starting out on Saturday.  While the vast majority will go by car, Sandra Marsian of Triple-A’s Pioneer Valley branch says the numbers choosing to fly has picked up this season over last year despite the region’s economy losing steam.
“To see people turning to air fares sort of shows that people want to with their friends and family for the holidays. And they’re going to take and incur that expense despite of what the economic factors are, if they can certainly afford to do so.”
Peter Pan, the Northeast’s dominant bus company, says ridership has also increased in recent years due, in large part, to high gas and airline ticket prices. Spokeswoman Kimberly Bolduc says Peter Pan expects to carry more than 200,000 passengers this holiday season and is adding buses to accommodate them. She says most will be college students, who are also eager to take advantage of free wi-fi and outlets on board to charge their electronic devices.
“We estimate that we transport close to one million college students per year from Boston’s South Station and from UMass. So, you know, you can just imagine that around the holidays we are…there and available for college students to travel with affordable fares,”
For those going by car, Triple-A’s Marsian advises planning the route beforehand, carrying an emergency winter car care kit, containing at least a cell phone, caution flares and a blanket, and making arrangements for a designated driver if there’s going to be drinking over the holidays.