What if gas cost $10 a gallon?

Forget pizza delivery. And cheap airfares. And bottled water. In fact, forget a way of life that looks much like today’s. But would that be so bad?

In four years, U.S. gas prices have doubled to more than $3.70 a gallon, and crude oil has tripled to around $125 a barrel. Allowing for inflation, that’s higher than prices were during the 1978


Thousands of truckers would go bankrupt. Airplanes would sit idle in hangars. Restaurants and stores would shut down. Car-pooling, hybrid vehicles, scooters and inline skates would swing into vogue. And telecommuting, rooftop vegetable gardens, home cooking and recycling would proliferate.

Yes, it would be painful. At $10 a gallon, filling a Ford Explorer could cost $225. Even gassing up a Honda Civic could set you back $132.

And suddenly the bus wouldn’t look so bad.

MSN