How high must pump prices be to impact your driving?

I paid a bit more than $4.51 a gallon today to fill up my car... and that was a bargain. Most of the gas stations in my neighborhood are charging close to $4.65 per gallon for premium, which is what I need for my car. Regular is about $4.35 per gallon at most stations.

So far, I am not cutting back on my driving -- and I really can't. That's life in LA. But eventually prices will be high enough that I will have to cut trips or consolidate them if for no other reason but disgust.

I will have a very hard time paying $5 a gallon for gasoline.

How about you? At what price do you cut back? At what price do you get disgusted with the whole mess?

By the way, my very first TV reporting job was in Syracuse -- and my very first story was about a traveling salesman who could not make ends meet because the price of gasoline had just reached FIFTY CENTS A GALLON. That was December 17, 1973.

This week... at the end of February 2012... the price of premium gas at my corner Shell station when up by FIFTY CENTS A GALLON.

I have a different view, of course. I actually WANT gas prices to rise even to what they pay in Europe....$9 a gallon...or even higher. I know it's a tough swallow for those with families trying to make ends meet, but every generation has had to face life-changing events and because we are a strong society, we always figure it all out and overcome.

Why do I want gas prices to skyrocket? Even though I now have a brand new RV that gets maybe 4.5 mpg, it's more important to me to get the joy-riding slugs with their pieces of junk off the road, so it may be even safer for those of us who drive responsibly. Every town has its share of punks who drive those noisy rice burners and who speed and cut off anyone and everyone. I'd love to see these losers not be able to fill up their tanks anymore and just use their junkers for absolutely necessary trips while not thinking they're so cool by flooring it any more.

Actually, Rob, your theory will do the opposite. As gas prices rise, essential car maintenance including safety maintenance will decline. More cars with bad tires, bad brakes, and bad headlights and windshield wipers will be on the road and this could increase the accident rate.

Hardly. Compared to all the junkers on the road that just drive around because they have little else to do, the people who can pay the high prices will pay the high prices. Similar to this recession, look around at the casinos and strip joints in LV and elsewhere. There are less visitors, but the ones that don't come in are the ones who have been priced out of the casino-going equation--just like will happen if the gas prices get to where I want them to get. But by and large, the regular folks still go out and still have the money to spend, and those people will take car of their vehicles just as they did before.

Four dollars a gallon finally impinges on my consciousness, and I consolidate trips and make decisions to not go driving 10 miles across town for no good reason. It's stupid on my part for the big round figure to finally change my behavior, but that's how it's gone thus far. Gas is currently in the $3.80 neighborhood here.