If you had any doubts, be assured that reasonable people are heeding the warnings of local officials and weather experts and have wisely elected to avoid the snow and ice covered roads. Especially in the eastern half of the country where many states are pounded with anywhere from 10 inches in Alabama to as much as 24 inches of snow, (MD, PA) many schools and business took off Thursday and are closed again today, electing to stay safe at home. “Looking at the overall volume of gasoline purchases at thousands of stations across the U.S., we see that fuel purchases for the last four weeks are down by 65 percent compared to 2013, and overall purchases year-to-date are down by 71 percent.