Locking gas caps in short supply

Friday, September 2nd 2005, 10:11 am
By: News On 6

The spiraling cost of gasoline has led to a shortage of gas caps with locks on them.

News on 6 reporter Emory Bryan has the reaction and how people are topping off and locking up. Mike Magee just filled up and he's can't believe the price of gas. "It's high, its way too high." But he's not complaining about what he paid - just $2.64 a gallon - for diesel. But most people aren't driving diesels.

For the rest of us, gas is such an expensive commodity - it's become more common to lock it up. Of course any time gas prices rise, it makes it more likely to be stolen and even a can like this can hold $20 worth of gas.

A siphon pump doesn't cost much, so a lot of people are worried someone is going to steal their gas. NAPA has sold all its inventory of locking gas caps - except this one, which is an odd size. Jerry Ramsey with NAPA: "I've talked to 15 people today just on locking gas caps." And they sold them all in the good old days of lower prices - earlier this week.

Randy Fultz says he bought several, but he didn't wait for gas to hit $3. "When it went over $1, I locked mine up, and that's been a while."

Plenty of people are still filling up, some even filled up extra containers, hoping to save money since gas may go up even more.