[wisconsin_cur]

We had already reduced our driving earlier, we are now at the point that the next cut back would be me flopping in the Twin Cities every other time I work. I'm not sure what that price level will be. The bride and I should discuss it soon.

[NeoPeasant]

That's assuming that most will retire. In the midst of evaporating wealth and economic turmoil, it can be assumed that most who can work, will be working. Therefore, no reduction of miles should be considered a given.

In order for people to go to work, they will need jobs. In order for there to be lots of jobs we will need to continue our current habits of providing each other with lots of unnecessary goods and services. You know, the sorts of things people stop buying when there is a recession, and/or all their discretionary income is being consumed by energy costs.
On the other hand, our ever-wise federal government may decide to put everyone to work building more highways for the increased traffic that peak oil insures will never materialize.

[yesplease]

It's great! Driving efficiently and less over the past few years allows for investment in other cost cutting measures and consequently energy saving investments which in turn, allow more investment in the same... Clearly it isn't something that can continue forever, but it is something that IME snowballs up to a point, and results in large savings. I've seen a ~30-40% reduction in fuel costs, that lead to another 40% reduction in fuel costs, which will likely lead to another 30-40% reduction with the end result being the same utility for about 10-15% of the cost when I started out. Electricity consumption is similar with more utility coming with 20% of previous use. Water use is minimized by virtue of location, so the only thing left is climate control, which will likely see similar gains w/ no investment and a stiff upper lip, or in exchange for comfort, some investment.

[kjmclark]

I actually drove around a little bit more.

Same here. Our reason is some land nearby we bought. I'm actually toying with the idea of a small pickup truck. That would be fitting, wait until some suburbanite cowboy wannabe can't afford the truck anymore and buy it cheap to use it for hauling manure like it should have been used for in the first place. The only problem is most of those trucks are big V8 manhood crutches and I'd want a little 4x4 ranger with a manual transmission.