I’m not taking a survey but my general opinion is that people that like cars also like to drive. I think many of the members here like cars and like to drive, however there seem to be a disproportionate number of people here that would rather take the bus or an Uber. I don’t know why they like to come to car talk.
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Back on track here. Let’s get the gas tax in perspective. In the mid 60’s when I started driving, in California, the gas tax was ten cents per gallon ($0.10). The total cost per gallon including the tax was between $0.299 and $0.339 per gallon, which meant the tax rate was between 33.4% and 29.5%. Average income in CA at that time was around $9k, the national average was a bit lower, under $8k IIRC. A chocolate bar was 10c.
Last I heard, I don’t live in CA anymore, gas is over $5.00 per gallon. So their tax rate is about, or going to be about 14%. Income in California is over $76k per earner (2021), household income is around $111k (2020). In 1966, it was $3656.00.
I don’t know what that 10c Chocolate bar costs in CA today but at Walmart in Tennessee it is $1.34.
Also remember the gas tax is supposed to go for roads, it did in 66 anyway. Judging by the number of potholes, the roads were better maintained then than they are now.
I’m under the same impression, Bing. 
50 years ago the oil companies were swearing that the earth had less than 20 years supply left in the ground and Detroit was swearing a 40mpg car was impossible. Lucky for the oil and car companies the public’s memory is poor.
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I have seen posts about Park and Ride trains to places like New York City and other traffic nightmare cities. I have not seen any promoting Uber and things like that .
“Lucky for us they were both wrong.”
There, I fixed it.
50 years ago there was no idea that oil and gas could come from shales (“unconventional oil and gas”). If you had offered me a $1,000 bet 30 years ago that the US would be the world’s largest O&G producer in 2024, I’d have bet against it, no question. Don’t confuse the inability to predict the future with evil intent.
US oil production hits record levels under Biden - Vox
50 years ago US oil production was beginning a long slide, with no reason at the time to think it would turn around:
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50 years later and more than 5% of the Car Talk community have vehicles capable of 40 mpg, never say never. OTOH, I can understand why auto manufactures would object to such a requirement in 1974.
Did you mistype the “5%”? Isn’t it much higher?
Not many cars do better than 40 mpg real world day in day out.
Of the vehicles owned by top 5 frequent to reply to this thread your Honda in the most efficient at 36 mpg. That would be somewhat offset by your 3-ton diesel truck. One out of twenty to reply has a plugin hybrid vehicle.
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Like my grandfather in the catering business said, If you need eggs it does not matter the cost.
Dialog from Everybody Loves Raymond
Ray is trying to improve Debra’s cooking by asking his mother about her recipes.
Ray: How much wine should Debra put in the pasta sauce?
Marie: It depends on how much she has.
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This has nothing to do with the price of fuel. @George_San_Jose1 maybe you should Flag yourself for Off Topic.
Based on what they knew at the time they were right. But since then we’ve found more and larger oil reserves. They were NOT known to us the time. It’s not that they lied…It’s that we learned more. This is called SCIENCE.
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Re: 50 years ago, predictions of oil running out soon.
One of my physics classes at the time used the book “The limits to Growth” which was partially about this subject. I think that book is still in print, or a used copy should be easily obtained. There were a lot of assumptions built into the predictions. It was hard to know back then how accurate the assumptions were. In retrospect I don’t think they modeled the economic consequences of running low on oil very well; i.e. when oil starts getting scarce it becomes economically viable to search harder for it, and use more expensive methods to get it out of the ground. Still, this doesn’t change the basic predictions very much, just shifts the time frame to further in the future. At some point it seems inescapable that in the future gasoline will cost so much other energy methods will be needed to power cars.
Projections of the future are made from current conditions and are rarely accurate. Half the country was supposed to be underwater by now, experts said wringing their hands, and we’d all be flying to work every day.
Around where I live (a little north of Richmond), premium is $3.99 at Kroger, and about $3.39 for regular $3.14 for regular at BJs.
It jumped up here in the last day or so to $3.39.
Gas jumps up almost every travel (holiday) season, the 4th of July is no different, and it did here also, wait a bit and it will drop a little… A friend up in Rib Mountain Wisconsin said his gas there just jumped up 0.32 cents a gallon after being flat for about the last month, here it jumped about 0.10 cents a gallon… It is a roller coaster ride… time will tell…
Summer ALWAYS will see a rise in gas prices.
The good news for us…is we are spending significantly less on gas because we work from home and empty nesters. Our gas expenses are about 1/5th of what they were pre-covid.