Good news, at least locally: The current gas pumps will only accommodate 4 numbers. So, either the max will be $9.999 or they’ll have to drop the last “9”. I’m all for dropping that last decimal as a gas station has yet to give me $.001 back in change. Don’t know of any other commodity that is priced to more decimal places than the currency allows.
More (possible) good news: Gas may finally be more expensive than bottled water. Don’t quote me – I would hate to build up anyone’s expectations.
Bad news: It is getting progressively harder to round off the final purchase to the closest $.05. It use to take me a couple of taps on the gas pump to jump a penny. Now, I find I need to have a gap of 2 pennies. At $9.999, it might be a good test of one’s reflexes to hit the next 5-cent total. They might even want to add that to the drivers test to determine a person’s reaction time.
Suggestion for U.S.: Switch to metric for pricing at the gas pumps. It won’t make any difference in the final bill, but it will seem like the price of gas has gone down. Also, it will make it easier to round to the nearest 5-cents.