BATON ROUGE - When the price of oil spiked nearly $130 a barrel, drivers were met with an almost immediate spike at the pump. But even now that oil costs have peeled back, the price of a gallon of gas has not.

As of Friday, gas costs more than $4 per gallon in the capital region, and frustration is rising with the price. One Baton Rouge gas station's price reached $4.19 a gallon, and drivers were not happy.

"Makes me not want to drive as much, that's for sure," one driver said.

"Ridiculous," another driver said. "They're too high."

Experts say the price of oil has fluctuated since the pandemic eased, and the conflict in Ukraine isn't helping at all.

"When those daily variations in prices happen, it typically takes about a day or two for that price of crude oil to translate into the price that you and I pay whenever we go fill up," explained Dr. Gregory Upton, associate professor with LSU's Energy Studies Center.

Even though the cost of oil has come down from recent record highs, Upton says don't expect much change at the pump right now.

"We anticipate for prices to stay about in the range they are today, but over the next year or so, we expect the price of gasoline to decline by about 75 cents per gallon or so," Upton said.

The professor says gas prices could remain higher depending on how long the crisis in Ukraine lasts, reflecting sanctions on Russian oil production.

Some drivers do see a side benefit with the sky-high gas prices, tackling a different kind of pain Baton Rouge drivers deal with every day.

"The good thing with that, it might cut down on some of this traffic we got around here," one driver said.