I'm not sure how they come up with the price of $720. I live 100 miles away from my partner and if I go up there every week, I need about 8 gallons a week. So a dollar more per gallon would be for me, at most, $480 a year (figuring 10 gallons a week). And I live a pretty ridiculous lifestyle with the driving.

Part of the question is- how much of the 'average' driving is really necessary? People do cut back on vacation type travel if gas goes up abruptly, but it'll sneak back up even if gas doesn't go down. In other words, people adjust. If you want to have any hope of reducing consumption, prices will have to go up, probably rapidly. I don't see how you can do it without rations or without suffering of people at the bottom.

I know people who get 'stuck' at home because they run out of gas because they are out of money. In undergrad, I regularly got to school in the car of a friend who got an ancient Chevy blazer from a family member who was stuck with the gas guzzler because he couldn't afford anything else (I, obviously, couldn't afford any car at all at that time). So I know it will hurt people if prices go up. That's not a good reason to spend billions on stupid wars or pollute the earth beyond recognition.

The test site I worked at was 60 miles away from where I lived, 70 if I drove there from work. That's 120 miles a day.. 4-5 days a week... months at a time.. granted I was getting reimbursed for it, but shit.. that is a huge expense for the company to incur as well. The site is pretty out of the way, no viable public transport option, plus once you get there, there's some off roading to do, and you need ID badges and permits. My little honda was great on the mileage, but still.. it def added up.

lol ...

last time I filled up it was 1.51€/L and the audi took 57L ... so 86€ or 90€ with an espresso and toilet usage. for those stateside, that's about $120 for 700km (440miles) of highway driving.

Israel is ridiculously expensive too.. we pay per liter what you pay per gallon in the US. But this country is tiny, so you don't have all that far to drive..

Public transportation is pretty good here, in the cities, not in smaller places, and in between in a mess as well. If there are no direct routes, you're pretty screwed.

Well, in major cities that I have either lived or frequented (New York, Washington DC), public transportation is readily used and supported. In those cities there is no stigma associated with taking public transportation. Now, in smaller cities where I have resided, there is a stigma with public transporation (its for the poor only) - at least this is how I've perceived it - and these cities have struggled to keep their systems up and going. In other cities I've lived in, the public transportation they've had was nice but woefully inadequate, and I'm not sure why it suffered.