I wouldn’t know because I rarely have to fill up, but apparently gas is almost $4.00 a gallon around here. The Mobil station on Pacific Coast Highway and Second Street had regular unleaded for $3.99 this morning.

Someone I know recently bought a Hummer, so I started to think about his daily commute expense, aside from the cost of the vehicle itself. His workplace is 18 miles from his home, and the most convenient path happens to be a toll road. The toll is currently $2.25 each way. With a generous assumption of 12 miles per gallon, he uses 3 gallons round trip. That’s approximately $8.00 of gasoline, plus $4.50 in tolls, for a total of $12.50. If he drives that 240 days a year (5 days a week, minus holidays and vacation), that’s $3,000 a year. And that’s only this year. It will presumably be more next year, and the year after that, and so forth.

That’s a lot of money. It’s too bad we don’t have a subway system here; $4.00 round trip sounds like a steal right now!