More than four million Texans, the most in more than a decade, will be hitting the road or the friendly skies over Thanksgiving, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
"The worst time to be on the roads is the days leading up to Thanksgiving," Josh Zuber of AAA Texas, tells News Radio 1200 WOAI. "Really a lot of metro areas are going to be seeing increased traffic on Monday."
The Thanksgiving week runs from Monday Nov 19 through Sunday Nov 25th.
The vast majority of those traveling will be doing so by car, which means expect some traffic jams, especially in urban areas. For the purposes of the AAA study, those considered to be 'traveling,' will be going more than fifty miles from home.
Zuber says there are several factors contributing to the busy traffic over the holiday.
"A lot of people are traveling for the Thanksgiving holiday because of the robust economy," he said. "We are seeing higher wages, the housing market is doing well, and that is leading to a confident consumer who is really excited about traveling for the Thanksgiving holiday, and they have the money to do that traveling."
And the people who do drive over the Thanksgiving holiday will be getting a break at the gas pump. San Antonio gas prices are now down to an average of $2.35 a gallon, down 21 cents just in the past month.
The reasons for that are mainly involved in the exemptions included in the Iran sanctions, which took effect last week. Many major importing nations, including China, India, and Japan, which are among the world's largest importers of oil, are not covered by the Trump Administration sanctions.
There is also more oil on the world market due to increases in U.S. production, which set a record in August, and made the U.S. the world's largest oil producer.
Saudi Arabia, in light of the bad publicity it has received in the scandal over the murdered reporter, has also increased its production, although there is talk that the softness in the oil market may prompt the Saudis to cut production by one million barrels per day.