Today, the New York Times had a slightly fluffy but still interesting article called Go Ahead and Drive Less, if You Can. I'd been hoping to see a statistic about whether Katrina and high prices in general led people to decrease their driving after Labor Day even more than usual, and here it is:

"Normally we'd expect to see a decline of about 400,000 barrels a day from August to September just for seasonal reasons, as people stop taking vacations," said Doug MacIntyre, a senior oil market analyst for the Energy Information Administration.

But Americans consumed an average of 8.8 million barrels of gas a day for the week ending Sept. 16, down from 9.4 million the week before Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans and roughly 200,000 fewer barrels per day than in mid-September last year.

So, will it last (assuming prices stay at $2.70+/gallon?)

Technorati Tags: peak oil, oil, Hurricane Rita, Hurricane Katrina, gas prices