Found this excellent video report from the Centre For Investigative Reporting that  calculates the “external costs” of gasoline use in the United States. When I was in America, the ‘price of gas’ was a hot topic of discussion among cabbies in New York and DC. In Washington the mayor instituted a $1.00 surcharge on all taxi fares to offset the ‘high price’ of petrol.

Without a doubt, the price of petrol in the U.S. is artificially low compared to the rest of the world. The Economist notes that Americans pay about half of what Europeans pay. The Dutch pay the most. The true price of petrol is a lot more than we pay at the pump. But do we realise this?