Gasoline prices hit unexpected low in Wilson

Last weekend, I drove about 600 miles round-trip and had an opportunity to observe gasoline prices in North and South Carolina. The day I left (Thursday), I filled up my car in Wilson for the lowest price I'd seen in about four years — $1.439 a gallon. At least two stations I saw in Wilson offered that price for regular gas. I was pleased to spend a lot less than I had just a few months ago and to nearly get by with a single-digit fill-up. It ended up being $11.50.

What surprised me was that nowhere on my travels did I see gas as cheap as I had bought it in Wilson. Even in South Carolina, whose gasoline tax is 13.4 cents a gallon less, all of the gas stations were charging over $1.50. I paid $1.569 a gallon near Florence. On the return trip, I filled up again outside Smithfield for $1.599, not quite able to make it back to Wilson for some cheaper gas.

This experience reaffirms for me the fallacy of the complaint that gasoline in Wilson is inordinately high. This claim was recently given credence by a too-narrowly focused and credulous article in The Wilson Daily Times. The article compared prices in only a few places rather than taking a broader, overall look. Gasoline prices are volatile and can be influenced by competitive whims or circumstance. Gasoline prices just east of Wilson seem to trend a few cents lower for some reason, perhaps having to do with the supply chain, but statewide prices track close to Wilson's prices.

Because my three children live elsewhere in North Carolina, I do a lot of traveling to Laurinburg, Charlotte and Greensboro. I generally find prices along my routes comparable to Wilson's prices, sometimes a few cents lower, sometimes a few cents higher but almost always within two or three cents a gallon of prices in Wilson. The prices I saw last week surprised me. I assumed that I'd see plentiful gasoline for under $1.50 a gallon, in keeping with my experience over the past several years of gasoline prices aligning with what Wilson stations charge. But even in South Carolina, with its much lower gasoline tax, gasoline cost more — around 10 percent more — than it did in Wilson.