I'm amazed at the traffic in Italy at about $9 per gallon. Smaller, more efficient vehicles, and lots of scooters, but very heavy traffic nevertheless.

Of course there is traffic. People just love to GO! and without oil, they walk!

I remember a couple of years in Brazil in the early 60's, before anyone had cars. Life was good except for the very poor (who probably weren't that much worse off than the very poor today in the USA). The streets were filled with people -- walking.

Nostalgic, I know, but I could get used to a city that didn't have petroleum-fueled vehicular traffic. To be sure, people's ranges would be restricted, but would that be such a bad thing?

Hey N, I've been wishing decades for people to be able to stop saying "golly what a small world" Everywhere you go not only 'there you are' but also there is a effing MacDonalds or Wallmart and some god awful paunchy camera toting tourist looking at one like out of a mirror.

Interesting questions are average trip length and km per day. I speculate it's much less than typical US patterns.

My guess would be even US patterns aren't at all typical-i.e. the yearly miles driven per vehicle cover a broad range. Urban USA auto owners IMO will be able to tolerate extremely high gasoline prices-as development densifies, more auto users can tolerate even higher prices.