Call me twisted...
 

Call me twisted...but I'm pretty happy that gas prices have skyrocketed in California. Even if it's only temporary, maybe it will help open people's eyes

i agree. i hate paying more for gas, but i am getting a degree in Engineering with an emphasis on Energy. so it all works out :)

Its good that it may encourage more efficient behaviour - even if that tends to be temporary at best - but also bad as it hits a lot of folks struggling to get by quite hard.

twisted. necesity and inventions comes to mind; fender skirts..... boattails.... crxs and metros and all kinds of "econo-boxes" sky rocket in price also.

what does your daughter drive?:confused:

Exactly! I see the interviews with people who "can't afford" these gas prices, and maybe 8 out of 10 are driving fairly new vehicles, often SUVs or big pickups. So I have to wonder how those folks could afford the new vehicles (or payments), but not the fuel.

FWIW, I consider myself fairly well-off, but one of my two vehicles is a 2000, the other is an '88.

Maybe (the more the better) some peoples' eyes, but the standard procedure when fuel prices go up is to complain, protest and/or pray. You'll notice a lot of new members on Ecomodder and similar forums, most of them post 1-3 times, something along the lines of: I've got a big SUV which I drive 1.5 blocks to the store a few times a day. I want to get better FE, but I'm not willing to modify the car nor change my driving habits...

2008 didn't open their eyes ...
Back then, crude prices were more than half again as much as today.

Here it was mentioned recently in the papers that for the first time people start to drive less because of gas prices. For years the average annual distance driven per car was around 13.000 km, now it is reducing. However people mostly skip the visits to relatives so the writer of the article got worried over lonely grannies sitting and waiting for (grand)children that do not visit anymore....Sad as that may be....on my daily commute I mostly see cars with only one occupant....Huge potential in cost savings there (personal experience).

It did - somewhat. For a few months. There was a waiting list for Toyota Prii in the US in mid-late 2008. Then fuel prices went down and most people forgot about it. Then came the "Cash For Clunkers" program. And a few more people bought more fuel-efficient vehicles.
I can't speak for anyone else's situation, but I spend a LOT more of my income feeding myself than I spend feeding and maintaining my vehicles. I spend more on property taxes than I spend on vehicle fuel. I may even spend more on ethanol than I spend on E10 gasoline. :p