Americans are driving toy cars, using public transit to save money as gas prices soar
As gas prices continue to rise, Americans are finding creative ways to save money on transportation. Some are resorting to unconventional methods, such as using toy cars or public transit. This shift in behavior reflects a broader trend of reduced driving and increased reliance on alternative transportation options.
- ▪As of May 18, Americans paid an average of $4.52 a gallon for regular gasoline, significantly up from around $3 before the Iran war started.
- ▪An Ipsos poll indicated that 44% of Americans have cut back on driving due to rising fuel costs.
- ▪Public transit ridership has increased, with Bangor's bus system seeing a 21% rise since January.
3 outlets in our directory ran this story, first to last over 38 hours. Coverage spans 2 points on the political spectrum — 1 lean left, 1 centre.
- ▪ Gas prices are rising. So is public transit ridership. — Grist
- ▪ High gas prices pushing more Americans to public transit — CBS News — Top
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Story provenance
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Record
| Original publisher | New York Post |
| Canonical URL | https://nypost.com/2026/05/19/business/americans-are-driving-toy-cars-using-public-transit-to-save-money-as-gas-prices-soar/ |
| Publication time | Tue, 19 May 2026 11:26:05 -0400 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-19T15:29:57.691Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-19T15:36:57.430Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | HAOaDZemhBy1 · 3 stories |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
Rights status (four layers)
WeSearch handling by dimension
| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Business Americans are driving toy cars, using public transit to save money as gas prices soar By Reuters Published May 19, 2026, 11:26 a.m. ET See more of our coverage in your search results. Add The New York Post on Google NEW YORK, May 19 (Reuters) – Mali Hightower’s answer to high gas prices is a toy he fished out of someone’s trash. The 30-year-old handyman from Ellenwood, Georgia stuck a two-gallon, one-piston engine from a power washer into a broken pink Power Wheels Barbie Dream Camper — a battery-operated toy car less than four feet tall. One pull of the lawnmower-like rip cord and he’s off to the supermarket, knees at his ears, dirtbike helmet on his head. His real car, a 1996 Mercedes-Benz convertible, costs about $90 to fill.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at New York Post.
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