Feeling the pinch yet?

Experts are still waiting for most of America to reach its "breaking point" with the price of gasoline, the point at which gas consumption sees a significant drop due to major cutbacks in our driving habits. While most of us would probably say that we have made some adjustments to our style of living, the oil industry is waiting to see if we will actually change our daily routine. For example, while I used to drive over to the Detroit area to see friends and family at least once a month, year-round, those trips are now much fewer and far between. And I've already purchased tickets to too many good Tigers games this summer to let them go wasted, but I do plan on severely scaling back my trips to Comerica next summer.

But as to my daily routine, the gas crunch still hasn't hit home enough with me to force major habitual changes. I still drive roughly the same around town every week... if I stay in the Lansing area, I average usage of about 6 or 7 gallons a week, the same as I did a couple years ago. While I have CONSIDERED the possibility of using Lansing's bus system, or the idea of buying a bike and riding that to work or for other errands, the cost of gas still hasn't gone high enough to make those inconveniences worth the savings for me.

But the fact that I've even thought about them, represents a change in my thought pattern. I talked to Ben about driving downtown, he guesstimated it would be about 6 miles, or 12 miles round-trip. That would be great exercise every day, and save me money both on gas and parking. But it would probably subtract two waking hours from my average day, and it would be more difficult to transport things back and forth between the store and my home. Plus, many days I go directly from work to some other time-sensitive activity, so I would still wind up driving a few days a week.

The bus system is also an interesting idea. The time problem becomes less of an issue... if anything, I am able to utilize that time on the bus to read or be otherwise productive, in essence "adding" time to my day. But I still have to walk to and from the bus stop, and there is a charge for a monthly bus pass which cuts into the money I'm saving by not driving. And again, I am not in complete control of when and where I am going, so when is that inconvenience worth the money?

Some "experts" (I don't know how much credibility I assign to this guy's expertise) are now predicting that gas will hit $12-$15 and cause a monstrous recession between 2010 and 2015 (see Youtube end of post). The financial impact would be obvious, but one possible fallout will probably be the even GREATER urbanization of America, in which more people move into areas like Chicago or New York with cheap inter-city transportation systems which allows them to hold down a job without paying for gas every week. But the rising costs on virtually EVERYTHING else, and the effects on "rural" Americans, and even those of us in cities like Lansing without any really good public transportation, would still drive the country into a massive financial mess.

So I guess I'm just curious... has the cost of gasoline caused you to make any major changes to your daily routine? Has anyone passed the "breaking point", and changed their way of life to correspond with these prices?