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People need time to adjust. When the 1973 oil Embargo hit, people started to look at smaller cars, but they were very few (and they had to pay off their existing cars first). It was NOT till the 1979 oil crisis that you saw a drastic drop in oil usage (You had a slight drop throughout the 1970s, but the 1979 really caused people to stop using oil).
For most people they are three ways to reduce oil usage:
1. Buy a smaller vehicle. They can do this IF THEIR EXISTING VEHICLE IS PAID FOR. A secondary problem is that since the 1970s, Cars now last a lot longer then they did in the 1970s. I came of age in the 1970s and while you did occasional see cars from the 1960s still on the streets in the 1970s it was rare to see a car more than 10 years old (I do NOT remember seeing ANY 1950s cars on the streets in the 1970s except for obvious restored cars).
Today it is different, I see a lot of 10-20 year old cars. The reason for this change is diverge, but simple. The first reason is the improved rust protection most cars since 1980 have had compared to the rust buckets of the 1950-1970s. Those old cars use to rust out in 5-7 years top and needed to extensive rust repairs to keep them on the roads. Since the 1980s that is NO LONGER THE CASE. I Drive a twelve year old car with minimal rust. In 1977 my Father purchased a car that was rusted out by 1982(in 1990 he purchased the same type of Vehicle and it lasted 15 years do to the improvements in Rust prevention since 1980).
Another set of improvements have been in engines. In the 1970s it was rare for an engine to go over 100,000 without needing major overhaul, most engines today can do 200,000 without a major overhaul. My point is simple, todays cars can last 2-3 times as long as the cars in the 1970s AND PEOPLE ARE KEEPING THEM THAT LONG. This reflects both the the fact today's cars are lasting a lot longer AND that working class income has dropped since 1980. Simply put, most people today can NOT as easily trade in their car for a Smaller car as easily as their parents
could in the 1970s. Thus a lot of older cars are still on the road thus any conversion to smaller cars will take at least a decade not the 1/2 decade it took in the 1970s (i.e. don't look to see most people driving smaller cars till after 2012 if oil stays close to what it is today).
2. Drive less trips. Easier in the 1970s where downtowns still existed in many cities, but since the 1980s even these cities have lost they downtowns stores (or if they exist are NOT what they were in the 1970s). In Pittsburgh during the 1973 oil embargo every mall saw a drop in sales and customers EXCEPT SOUTH HILLS VILLAGE. South Hills Village held its own, basically because it was along the one of the three last remaining Streetcar lines in Allegheny County (The County Where Pittsburgh is located in). I remember taking that Streetcar to the Village, it was always packed and a lot of people got off the Streetcar and walked the approximate 1/2 mile to the mall. Several major Stores in the area still had what are called "First Generation Suburban Branches" i.e. built in the 1930s are the end of Streetcar Lines so that people with cars could drive to them, and people who worked in them could take the streetcars to them. Like the Downtown Stores, when oil prices drooped in the 198s0 these stores saw a drop in the ir business and were closed, replaced by newer stores in Malls even further out in Suburbia. Thus changing shopping and/or work habits to older ones to use less fuel is NOT as easy today as it was in the 1970s.
Another way people could reduce oil usage was by car-pooling, but that requires people working together also living close to each other. This was true when you had big manufacturing (Steel in Western Pennsylvania) but less true when those business went under or moved overseas. It is hard to carpool when all your co-workers live in different parts of your county. Thus Car-pooling can NOT be as effective as it was in the 1970s.
The 1970s was a unique decades, Suburbia expanded but at the lowest level in decades, Rural American actually EXPANDED (just slightly, as the price of oil forced people living in Rural areas to buy things more locally permitting people to stay who before and afterward left for urban and suburban areas). This expansion of Rural America is occurring again and Suburbia expansion seems to be about to end. Walmart expanded into Rural America in the 1970s, but really expanded in the 1980s as the price of oil drooped. In the 1990s Walmart moved in the Suburbs, but in the distance suburbs where it could buy land cheap and build huge stores, and count on people DRIVING to the store from far distances. With the price of oil going up, these trips have dropped and Walmart is hurting. People still make the trip, but not as often and buy less so Walmart is surviving but its huge expansion of the 1990s is a thing of the past. As the price of oil goes up, less and less people will be able to drive to these stores and to keep employees, salaries will have to go up just so the employees can continue to drive to work (This will be a problem for ALL retailers, but Walmart do to its dependence on people driving will suffer the worse). Furthermore given the location of the Stores and that employees tend to live in older sections of the community, away from such stores locations, Walmart can NOT even do what other retailers did in the 1970s, provide transportation themselves i.e. Vans picking up employees. Such Vans only work if the employees all live close to each other, not dispersed like most Walmart employees.
3. Look at other ways for recreation. I traveled through the Oakland Section of Pittsburgh last month and I notice they are a lot more bicyclist then when I attended school in Oakland in the late 1980s. Bicycles are a good alternatives to cars, but only if the employees live 5 miles from where their work (You can do 10 miles per hour, and most commutes are about an hour, thus the 5-10 miles limit provided it is on a flat route, more time if it is hilly). If people combine recreation with commuting (i.e. going by Bicycle) you can reduce oil consumption, but it has to look safe and be safe. This is the one area where we are superior to the 1970s. In the 1970s even THINKING about going by bike to work was looked upon as the unthinkable, today you have more and more people actually going by bicycles. It is small but growing. People right now believe they have to DRIVE to ride a bike (do to fear of riding with Cars more than anything else). They have to drive to have any from of recreation. This will have to change, but it will take a long time. The reason for this is people and society are geared to cars as part of your recreation environment, and it will take years to get people to accept to take a date via a Bus or Streetcar or even biking to walking together.
Thus in some ways we are better than where we were in the 1970s (i.e. using bikes as a means of transportation) but worse in that to have recreation with people we want to meet is still based on one's ability to do such activities by car. This will continue till we accept the fact the car will NOT be with us much longer, and even then you will have people who will fight this for a Car to them is the symbol of their Independence and who they are.
All told the above three ways to reduce oil usage have severe restrictions for them to kick in EXCEPT IF SOMEONE CAN NO LONGER AFFORD GASOLINE. That time is coming, but we are NOT quite there yet. I suspect it will require gasoline to equal one's hourly ware (i.e. Minimum wage earners will be hit first, such low income people are the first people hurt in Indonesia and other countries as the price of oil started to equal their hourly income. This seems to be the point where people are forces to STOP using oil. It appears that is NOT that far off, is suspect the Spring 2008 as the Dollar drops in value and oil holds its value. No giant price increase just a gradual increase as the dollar drops.
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