So, yeah, I was one of those smug "alternative energy" people who used to mutter to themselves that, if we had $4.00 per gallon gas, we'd see some change then, by God; people wouldn't be so damned cavalier about driving their cars to the Corner Stop for nachos and a cherry Coke.

One lesson learned: don't fuck with me. My wishes come true.

Other lessons? Well, we *did* get that $4.00 gas that I wanted, and...what then? I read in a place or two that SUV sales did indeed drop dramatically; newspapers reported decreased holiday travel. But as for me, I don't think that I changed any of my habits. I think we pretty much did the same things and bitched about the price of it more.

Did anyone else's habits change significantly? And now, as gas prices drop, do we rejoice, do we keep a wary eye on Hummer dealers, or is it a little of both?

I noticed a lot of the moms at my kids' school driving atypical beater small cars to truck the kids around in. I say atypical because in my neighborhood it seems everybody but a select few drives around in a Lexus SUV, a Suburban, or a minivan. A couple of weeks ago I noticed a heck of a lot of these sudden beater sedan drivers going back to their SUVs.

As for me, I drive a Scion XB, and I haven't really changed my habits at all. I've always combined trips and spared the gas wherever I can. I tend to fill up my 10 gallon tank about once every 2 weeks. Right now that costs me about $19.

Alan started taking the bus to work for the first time ever this past summer. Between gas and parking, his 36-mile round trip commute was costing us $12 a day, and that's not even including wear-and-tear. Public transportation saved us a significant amount of money this year.

And yet as gas prices have gone down and I've gotten lazier about it (I had to drive him to the bus stop on the way to dropping the Dragon off at daycare), we've brushed off the bus more often than not. He still takes it when there's really no excuse not to, but we do find excuses more and more.

Other than that, we did combine trips more and ask ourselves twice whether we really needed to drive the 10 miles each way to Target, or if we could get the equivalent product up here a lot closer (which we usually could). Now again, though, we're letting up and I know it's costing us.

hell to the yeah.

we were looking to buy a car back in feb, economy of fuel was either first or second on our list of priorities.

Also, i cut out all non-essential driving, walked a lot more... for instance, we have two massive shopping centres that sit on either side of a busy stretch of road. Homeware central (furniture, furnishings, hardware etc etc ) on one side, more general stores and supermarket on the other. Once upon a time, i would drive to one, do my shopping, get back in the car, drive the u-turns and whatev to the other car park, and do my other shopping, before going home.

These days i park at one and walk to the other.

It's not particularly pleasant, there are no footpaths, there are about 50 miles of baking hot carpark bitumen, the smell of used petrol, hot baked dying plants here and there, trucks hurtling along the road...

Anything less than 3km i try to walk now. Especially if the weather is good, and i don't have to carry too much there (or back - no good going out on foot if you know you're bringing home an 8-foot magnolia - totally won't fit in the pram.)

Now that the price is going down, i'm totally determined to keep hoofing it, we need to pay a few major bills. And i totally need to lose some damn weight. And get some vitamin D.

We tried to avoid gas to begin with. We have an electric lawn mower and weed eater. We have one car. It's a minivan, but it's the most fuel efficient mini van we could afford. Spouse works from home. We've always combined errands. So no, our habits didn't change, but we never spend that much on gas anyway.

Pretty much everything I need is within five miles of my house. My car sips gas pretty lightly so I only fill up once a month...or less.

Having said that, I would like to walk the kids to school, but I'm waiting for them to finish the traffic light at the intersection closest to my house. It's a four way stop for 8 lanes of traffic right now which I'm not keen to cross on foot, while hoping for the goodwill of Texas drivers.

I've been either van pooling or taking the bus to work for about 3 years now. I honestly didn't start doing it for eco-conscience reasons I did it because I really don't enjoy driving (especially during rush hour). We have also been a one car household since The Companion's car died back in March.

Gas in our areas is now $1.50/gal. I was hoping the over $2 drop in gas prices would bring groceries down a bit but it hasn't yet.

MNM, NEVER depend upon the goodwill of Texas drivers. :)

I couldn't change my driving habits. I have to drive about 35 miles to work and back every day (about 70 miles total). Often stop and go. Sometimes takes over an hour each way. The drop in gas prices means that I just found $400-500 a month that I didn't have before.

And that's not $400-500 that is now going into savings - no, we need clothes, household items, etc. I think the oil companies really pushed us deeper into recession by hoovering up all the money that could have gone to other businesses.

Oh, and $4 gas? In SoCal we got to $5.

We were lucking in that the worst it got was 3.50 and now it's 1.60. Driving in Dahlgren was worse than in North Chicago. Everything was 10 miles or less there but in Dahlgren the bigger stores, movie theaters, attractions in general were at least a half hours drive away.

Now we're in Norfolk and we're back to that 10 mile radius. It's fantastic.

Oh and when Sailor got out of boot camp in Sept 07 we bought a smaller car with great gas mileage that helped when gas prices got crazy. It was a big improvement from the Blazer (which I loved but couldn't afford to fill up).

I liked seeing the high prices for the reasons CPF states: many people actually started modifying their behavior.

It didn't affect us much either. My daughter started in public school this year, so we don't drive her every day; she takes the bus. I take mass transit to work. We do little daily driving. While it was sticker shock to fill up, we didn't have to fill up that often.

It didn't affect us much either, except to bitch about when we needed to make a few long trips. Hubby takes public transit every day and we have the one vehicle, which is bigger than a car but not an SUV, so it is still good on gas. We made that decision when himself was arriving because my little car couldn't fit his crap and it didn't make sense to keep having two cars.

But the lower price of gas has trickled down to consumer products again so the prices of food are going back down. Which is lovely.

We didn't change our habits. On most days, I have to drive to meetings out of the office. So I'm tied to my car.

And all I hear is talk about how travel has decreased due to the economy, etc. But for the past two years, EVERY SINGLE TIME I'VE FLOWN the plane has been jam packed. What's up with that?

I also started driving the speed limit on the freeways, or at least within 5 mph of it, and let me tell you, that's no small feat in L.A. People get pissed. But it saved us some money, too, and it's been a pretty easy habit to keep. It's kinda fun being the doddering old lady in the right lane.

DGB, I think there are fewer flights in total, so more people end up on each one. The airlines lose less money that way. ;)

kathy, after spending the bulk of the last few weeks around L.A. (mostly in Arcadia, where my grandmother lives, but out for several day trips), I don't know how anyone ever can drive within 5 mph of the speed limit. The traffic all seems to go about 15 mph. ;)

Also, gas is cheaper in SoCal right now than it is in Philly. There were ARCO stations out there charging $1.85. The lowest I've seen since I got back here is $1.98.

Financially, I'm happy to not be paying so much for gas, but if things weren't so tight right now in the Grey household, I'd happily pay that much for gas if it gives people the incentive to drive smaller cars and use cars less frequently. This is not a renewable resource and it is way undervalued. When the price was high, I didn't bitch about it once. Not once.

Have my habits changed since gas went up? Down? Neither, actually. My husband and I drive out of necessity for our jobs--public transportation is not a feasible option for either of us (when we compare the cost-(time and financial)benefit ratio). But if it were, I'd be all about it.

Go Kathy! Driving the speed limit is a fabulously countercultural activity.

I will miss the delicious sense of schadenfreude I got when seeing people out in their Hummers. That was awesome.

Life is pretty centralized out here - everything really within three miles or so - so fuel efficiency wasn't too big a deal for us, even with our ancient car.

i'd gladly pay more for gas, but we're also a one-car household living close to public transportation, so it's easy for me to say. on a structural level, i'd be waaaay more okay with expensive gas if the extra $$ went to building an actual, usable public transportation/pedestrian infrastructure instead of to oil companies. people say it can't be done, but we managed to put roads everywhere, so i don't see why we can't get public transportation where we need it to be as well.

My habits didn't really change, but I was pretty fuel-efficiency minded anyway, so. I drive a hybrid and I, also, loved seeing Hummers out and about and cackling to myself.

I've thought for a while that we should pay higher taxes on gas, and that those taxes should go to fund research into clean energy.

Right now I hope that Congress says to the auto executives, "No money unless you have a plan that basically is all fuel-efficient vehicles with low emissions. And when we say low we mean LOW, not slightly lower than an SUV the size of our living rooms.". But I'm not holding my breath.

i'd forgotten this, but we moved from a tiny town to the bigger one so we wouldn't have to drive 30kms just to do the groceries and stuff, and once we settled in, DaD changed jobs too, so that he wouldn't be driving 150kms a week just for work. Made a huge difference to how much money we had at the end of each week.