I am having a bit of trouble believing this, but I cannot tell ANY difference in the amount of traffic on the routes I drive around B'ham. On the road to Auburn Friday afternoon it took us from 3:57 pm until 4:30 pm to get from Dolly Ridge Road to Hwy 119 on US 280.

You are entirely correct about owners of 26 MPG vehicles not having nearly as much pain as one might think. But there sure are a lot of SUVs on 280. It will be most interesting to see what happens to them if gas hits 6 or 7 dollars a gallon.

Someone I work with who drives a long way to get home said he has seen a 20% reduction in traffic. I would have to see that to believe it.

I think anyone who drives an SUV can afford $6-7 gas, not because the SUV is expensive, but because they think it's worth the extra money to (a) haul lots of stuff/people/air (b) terrorize other drivers on the road and (c) drive halfway in one lane and halfway in another while talking on a cell phone.

The effect of price on consumption will be incremental, but you can see the beginnings of a new division in society between those who can afford to keep a car on the road and those who cannot. With scarcity of any kind -- and the cause (peak oil, speculation, etc.)is unimportant in this regard -- comes violence. I guess we should begin to see violent events around gas pumps presently. That will happen sooner than the downsizing of vehicles.

I'm surprised people haven't been siphoning gas more frequently from parked cars. It costs $130 to fill up a Suburban. I just read an article about people stealing manhole covers and selling them to scrap yards.

If scarcity brings violence, then why aren't people killing each other in Europe over gasoline? It has been over $6/gallon there for over a decade. I guess they are more civilized.

This is amazing. I did read an article about hypermiling this morning and it had some good tips too. I thought I had pretty good milage hygiene until now. I did an experiment on the way home.
Normally I get 26 mpg on my commute. Today I tried simply pushing in the clutch when going down hill and coasting at 800 rpm instead of 2500. I also took it easy on the take offs and tried to conserve as much momentum as possible. There was some stop and go on 65 so it was not ideal. I never got over 60 except when coasting. The zoom-zoom was a little sad. But not so sad! I got 38.5 mpg!!!! I will try longer to sauer this is valid data. But it seemed accurate and normally I get decent data for that length trip. Yay! Still looking forward to the infinity mpg that I get on my bike!

Follow up. Not quite as exciting round trip. It is uphill from home to work by about a net of 150 feet. I had noticed previously that I get better milage going from work than to work. Then I wasted time going around the block an extra time because I forgot my badge and had to go in the other gate. Then the parking deck is uphill too on the way in! (and I didn't reset the computer till after I was out of the deck yesterday so missed the downhill benefit there.)
The final round trip milage was still over 35 mpg. This is still amazing and is a 33% improvement.
This would save me $550 per year at 15k miles and $3.90/g for premium.

And it is more fun to drive purposefully than robotically keeping up with traffic. It is a challenge to stay out of the way and also avoid getting slowed down when trying to conserve momentum. Feels a lot like trying to ride a fixie with a group of geared bikes. This won't work in bumper to bumper traffic. And on that note I have to say the traffic seems a little thinner these days. Yay!

Good point on Europe, and I guess there are three interrelated answers. One, is there has been some violence (Spain, Germany) that follows the class lines I've described. Two, Europeans do not subsidize oil companies as we do. The result is far higher gas prices at the pump, but less volatility in the market. Third, the decreased volatility can also be explained in terms of far greater emphasis on mass transit, fuel efficiency, and alternative energy sources in EEU nations.