Average car in Virginia (which is a pretty typical US state) goes 17K miles a year. So moving to a UK model (9K) would be more like a 50% cut.

There is no question that it CAN be done. The Juneau example is proof of that.

But in the nearfield (5 years) that cut is going be extremely painful, and EXPENSIVE. Expensive in the sense that shopping, vacations, and all those other little things gets cut. It would be like being back in WW2 consumer rationing.

In the longterm, yes, we would adapt. After all Europe survives quite nicely on $9 gas and lower miles being driven. But, as countless people have pointed out, they did have 25 to adapt.

That sort of rationing would eviscerate the current US and world economies. Such a downturn, would in turn, reduce world wide demand for oil. And the price would fall….

The question is how to create a soft landing. The more present question is how to stabilize and reduce the number of miles being driven. Gas taxes are not going to work in this climate. Asking everyone to car-share is not going to work. CAFE is not going to work either. Joe’s move to plug-in hybrids DOES work, but not in the next 5 years.

How many kids are driven to school with only one or two kids and one parent in the car? All those empty seats.

How many of us run errands more than once per week? Personally I go to town once and week and am now cutting back to twice a month. Run gas up to $10 a gallon and I’ll go once a month.

How many of us go out to dinner or to the movies with only two people in the car? Need I go on?

I well remember the gas crunch of a few decades back. People got creative. Some people slept in their offices one or more nights per week. Some people stayed at friend’s or co-workers houses one or more nights per week. I know people who drove their RV to the city and slept in it a few nights a week.

Then there are other creative ways to save gas. We don’t really need to go shopping as much as we need stuff that’s in stores to get to our houses. Perfect for online ordering and regularly scheduled delivery service. SuperStore drops off your groceries, prescriptions, and new bloomers.

We’ve got a company delivering food from multiple restaurants in our area now. No reason that every restaurant need run a separate car to drop of pizzas and Chinese.

There’s a lot of elasticity in our transportation system. We can even walk, ride a bike, or take the bus part of the time.

And then there are the PHEVs/BEVs coming on the market now and in the next year or so. Those move us off the petroleum teat and onto off-peak electricity, with which we are amply supplied.

Very few of us are screwed. We just need to think about different ways to do the same old things.

The FHWA data, I’m sure we can both agree, is flawed in many ways. Yes, I agree engines are more efficient and cars are too heavy. But if we go back to 1987 size cars — with their attendant safety risks — we’ll just be going from 20 to maybe 27 MPG averages. The CAFE numbers are also somewhat imaginary — not based on how you use the car.

And Bob, yes. One day a week car pooling would greatly reduce the number o miles being driven by CARS that COMMUTE. However, there are 240 millions cars in the US, and they are not all being used for commuting. And that 11K mileage figure is also an imaginary average. The miles are also being used for shopping and other transport. My hypothesis is that even if you forced every single American to share a car to work, you would barely get to UK levels of miles being used. Too much of our transport is NON-JOB-COMMUNTING, and we need other solutions to get those miles down.

“Let’s not forget that reduced consumption is only one of the effects of high energy prices. ”

This statement is back to front. High energy prices are a product of high demand and limited supply. Your statement only has relevance in a segment of the global economy and shows that you are not thinking about climate change (the subject of this blog) but about the fate of the US economy.

Notice the slight leveling off of miles traveled during the 1991 and 2001 recessions–per the FHWA data. Also, CAFE standards for light trucks were going up again as of 2004. Both of those add to the price effect, which I agree is real. I don’t think there is any way to know what the short-term and medium-term gasoline price-demand elasticity functions are. Why bet the planet that you do know that?