Why in your opinion have the high gas prices not had that much of an impact on American driving habits?

Answer 1

People are changing their spending habits from something less desirable to driving which is more desirable. When people run out of discretionary income, they will start to cut back on driving.

Answer 2

The gas prices HAVE had an impact, just not a huge one.

People will less money have had to cut back wherever they can. Those with more money probably haven't really felt the pinch yet.

Quite simply, the price of gas has not gone high enough to seriously affect most Americans.

Now, in the Netherlands, people pay over $6/gal., but realize that there is not room for all those vehicles over there, a lot of people use bicycles, and the tax from the gas helps fund universal health care.

Answer 3

most americans are too lazy or dependent upon their cars and will not drive less until they have to.

a national "don't fill your car day" will have practically no effect on the big oil companies. first off, most people don't fill their tank daily, so only a few people would not make a noticeable difference. if we want to lower prices at the pump, we need to go about two weeks without filling our tanks - can you handle car pooling, public transportation, or bicycling? this will cause the gas supply to stockpile, in which case it will have to be stored (which costs money) or liquidated at reduced prices.

but this will not happen. see first paragraph.

thanks for the two points.

Answer 4

I know personally that my family has no choice but to keep driving. yes, it has definately hurt our wallet but we still have to go to work and we still need to run the same errands so the only thing we can do is to try and car pool every once and awhile, but that is difficult because we live so far out of the way.

Answer 5

Who says they havent? Restuarant profits have been reported down. Resorts have reported lower than expected travel tourism.

There are signs of a slowed spending due to rising gas prices everywhere.

Answer 6

I don't know about the rest of Americans, but I've cut back on driving. I guess I cut back about 20% to 30%.

Answer 7

People still have to go where they need to go. They are going to do it no matter what the gas price is.

Answer 8

Well, I know that when I have a distance to go, I dont always feel comfortable taking a train or bus alone. Combined with the heat on somedays, you dont want to walk or ride a bike somewhere either.

Answer 9

Should people suddenly stop going to work because it costs them a few bucks more to get there? It's not like we have a choice in the matter.

Answer 10

Americans are gluttons. We live out lives in massive debt. We just modify where our debt goes. (Food, entertainment, housing, cloths etc). We are used to living in debt.
It is however destroying the American auto makers. Their sales are crashing (pun intented).