Nation

Drive Pricing

There's a certain nebulousness to the damage you do to yourself each day -- from the liver-scarring with each drink, to the mounting myopia each time you turn on your computer and sin. But you can monitor the damage driving does your pocketbook, with Drive Pricing.

From a Phoenix software engineer, DP's a google mash-up that calculates the cost of driving from point A to point B -- helping you determine whether hitting a sale in Santa Monica will actually save cash, or if, instead of visiting your friend in Glendale, you should put that $10.53 towards a month of Starz. Just enter your starting/destination address (or addresses; the site supports multiple locations), plus your zip, car's mpg, and fuel type (regular, midgrade, premium, or diesel -- if you drive an old Mercedes, or an 18-wheeler stacked with flattened old Mercedes). DP then spits back the miles you'll be traveling, average price-per-gallon, and total expenses via a yahoo area-fuel-cost metric; it'll also feed you a map to keep you from getting lost, so your $1.56 sprint for Pot Pie doesn't becomes a $15.60 marathon for two Pot Pies.

Future features'll include the ability to drag and drop a different route, and to calculate when/where you'll run out of fuel on a long route, with prices adjusted to nearby gas stations -- where you can pick up some blindness-inducing print "materials", so by the time you hit Vegas, you'll literally hit Vegas.

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