Don’t you know gas prices are going up, up, up, up, up/
To live in this town you must be tough, tough, tough, tough, tough!
You got speed bumps on the west side/
Road work uptown.
What a mess, this town’s in tatters, my shocks been shattered/
My wallet’s been battered, exhausted all over Rice County.
(With apologies to the Rolling Stones…)

Locally and nationwide gas prices are now setting records almost daily ($2.469 a gallon today in Northfield). Conventional wisdom holds that Americans will cut back on gas use as prices climb (they’re up over 27% from a year ago), but a recent quote in a Bloomberg News story by Jeff Lenard, a spokesman for the National Association of Convenience Stores, indicates that isn’t the case so far.

“At the retail level we haven’t seen a slackening in demand,” said Lenard. Department of Energy statistics verify this: U.S. gasoline consumption for the four-week period ending August 5 rose 1.4% over the same period last year. Lenard added, mystifyingly, “Consumers are doing anything they can to make a difference in how much they’re spending, short of using less.”

It would be positively un-American to “use less,” I know. However, I recently saw how high fuel prices can influence consumer behavior when I spent a few weeks traveling in England and Scotland. It’s sobering to realize the £45 you just paid to put 49.5 liters of gas in your small rental car’s tank translates to $81 for 13.1 gallons, or $6.20 per gallon.

This price difference is the result of British tax policy, not the market. The result of years of high U.K. fuel prices is consumer demand for more-efficient vehicles. In America, in contrast, modest Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards have not been raised in years, and cheap fuel and slick advertising have led to consumer demand for large, powerful vehicles. We find ourselves completely unprepared for a high-oil-price global economy and remain heavily dependent on imported oil and at the mercy of major foreign oil producers.

After the pump price shock wore off, I realized both what you do and don’t see on the British roads.

You do see:
*Small, efficient cars. Not the reviled econoboxes of the past, but well-made, safe, practical and fun vehicles.

*Many clean diesel cars. Not yesterday’s stinky exhaust-spewers, but vehicles with emissions and performance similar to their gas-powered counterparts, yet with mileage about 30% to 40% better. These range from tiny vehicles to large luxury sedans. Sales of diesel cars have increased dramatically in recent years, and accounted for 33% of new car sales in the U.K. last year, and 49% of sales in the European Union as a whole.

You don’t see many SUVs, pickups or minivans, and most of those you do see are smaller than their American counterparts, diesel-powered, and more efficient.

It’s shameful that we don’t have many of the smaller, stylish, comfortable, safe vehicles in this country that I saw in the U.K. A few examples (all diesel):
*Mercedes-Benz A160 CDI (51.6 miles per gallon mixed city/highway)
*Toyota Yaris 1.4D-4D (53.3 mpg)
*Audi A2 1.4 TDI (53.3 mpg)

*VW Polo 1.4 TDI (50.8 mpg)
*Volvo S40 1.6D (48.0 mpg)
*Ford Fusion TDCi (53.3 mpg)
*Citroen C2 HDI (56.6 mpg).

There are even relatively efficient minivans, such as the VW Sharan (diesel, 35.7 mpg). The most efficient U.S. minivan averages 24 mpg.

The bottom line is that the U.K. passenger vehicle fleet is much more efficient than its U.S. counterpart, and the U.K. is thus less vulnerable to oil price increases. Already, the European Automobile Manufacturers Association has voluntarily committed to achieving fleet average efficiency of 42 mpg by 2008, and a long-term goal of 49 mpg is being seriously discussed. The U.S. is stuck at about 25 mpg for cars and “light trucks” (including pickups, minivans and SUVs, which made up 52.7% of 2004 new vehicle sales in the U.S. compared to only 11.7% in Western Europe).

There is much we can do to respond to high fuel prices. The best response is indeed to use less, whether by driving less, or by choosing more-efficient vehicles when it comes time to replace the family rig. Combining more-efficient vehicles with biofuel (ethanol and biodiesel) use holds tremendous promise in drastically reducing U.S. oil consumption.

The recently passed federal energy bill includes tax credits for efficient hybrid gas-electric and new clean diesel vehicles, and incentives for ethanol and biodiesel production. If enough consumers take rising fuel prices seriously, we can reduce and eventually eliminate our foreign oil addiction. If high fuel prices hasten America’s move toward hybrid gas-electric and/or clean diesel vehicles, and biofuels, bring them on.

Prepare now, or be truly shattered later.