If every single gasoline burning vehicle in the United States suddenly doubled its mileage rating, it would save about 5 million barrels of oil a day (current gasoline consumption is the equivalent of about 10 million barrels of oil a day)

This amount is approximately equal to the projected increase in Chinese oil usage in the next ten years.

That's just China.

I really think we need the hard hats.

There is a much bigger picture here, affecting many things beyond energy. We came out of WWII as pretty much the only intact major industrial power, and a generation grew up with the luxury of no serious competition for either manufacturing or resource use. We could afford to pay someone high wages and extensive benefits for turning a bolt on an assembly line. Who else would do it? "Made in Japan" was still a joke. The only thing made in China were chopsticks. Places like China and India were Third World nations.

We have left a Golden Age where, due mostly to circumstances, and WWII, we were pretty much an island of wealth in a sea of poverty. That's changing, and the only two long-range choices are to either figure out some new way to run a planet that's all First World, or settle for one that's all Third World.

If we divide all the current world oil consumption up evenly, the U.S. is going to have to get by with 1/7 of what it uses now. You ready for that?

I don't know what traffic planning is like where you are, but here in California, it's largely occupied by frustrated social engineers, and it doesn't work well here, either.