Also, the average price for a gallon of petrol in the UK (when you convert pounds to dollars and litres to gallons) is $6.22

Scott,

You need to turn off your "Now Playing", Will Smith?????

How about some New Orleans gangsta rap?

But in other countries where gas is more expensive, have the prices risen gradually to reach that point or do they also jump $0.60+ (or ~21%) in 3 days? Gas prices will always rise (that's a given), but when the rate is more than gradual, that's when it becomes a factor. Rate increases like this eat into your budget and it's not always easy to update accordingly.

Hey Scott, a couple of us are donating our Adsense revenue towards disaster relief. Feel free to spread the idea around.

http://www.lazycoder.com/weblog/index.php/archives/2005/09/01/my-ad-revenue-this-month-goes-to-katrina-relief/

Currently, the average price for a gallon of regular is $5.50 in Switzerland - premium is about $5.65 or more. The price has jumped quite a bit (40-45 cents) in the past 2 days or so.

Yes, yes. Americans are stupid and uncaring. Everyone else is worse off, how can we complain. Blah, blah. We've heard it before.

Surely you know that everything is relative?

-->who found it “horrifying” that she might need to carpool or pay $40 to fill up)

$40 sounds like a deal, it's $80 to fill my tank up.

Or we could be in Venezuela, paying only $0.12 a gallon.

[soapbox]

It is sad though that where I live (not stating country I live in, but it's obvious), it now costs the same to fill my 4 gallon motorcycle (25 - 30mpg) as it did my 14 gallon car last year.

As far as Venezuela goes, how may people drive down there? And who owns their refineries? We SHOULD follow through with Pat Robertson's idea if we can't get our refinery situation straightened out.

A friend of mine pointed out what one of the problems we are having. It's not how much oil we have or can get. It's how much we can process. In that respect, why is that we haven't built a new refinery since the 1970's to compensate for the greater need? And now that prices are climbing with no end in sight, (I'm not comparing country to country here) what are we going to do about it? Alternative fuel sources are still a dream. Why not build another refinery?

Environmentalists.

Sure, greenhouse gases are a problem. But until a real, viable and cost effective solution to reduce these gases form fossil fuels is found, we have to continue as we are doing RIGHT NOW.

One funny thing I have noticed is these environmentalists are driving cars too. They have to go to work too. I have even seen bumper stickers that state things like "Save the Rain Forest" on the back of a Hummer!?! Come on!?! (Others include slams against Bush and the Iraq war on the same kind of vehicles. Hypocrites?)

If you wnat to do anything good right now, help out in Biloxi and New Orleans (etc).
[/soapbox]