Another reason to slow down

Yesterday, I wrote about a national campaign to encourage Americans to drive smarter and use less fuel.

Blogger Deron Lovass, vehicles campaign director for the national advocacy group, the Natural Resources Defense Council, weighed in today here, encouraging people to apply their own power to the supply and demand situation.  Increasing demand driving up the price? Cut the demand to force a drop.

He also has a chart showing gas prices adjusted for inflation since 1918 and interesting policy analysis.

He notes:  NRDC estimates that if everyone took several simple steps like the ones outlined in the Drive $marter Challenge, "we could improve gas mileage by perhaps 10-20 percent, which would reduce fuel consumption by 9-17 percent."  He says it would would save about 1.5 million barrels per day, or five times as much as the extra production from Saudi Arabia in response to a recent plea from President Bush.