Another dip in CA gas sales

Any year-to-year decline used to be considered rare. Now it's routine. Californians bought 14.8 billion gallons of gas in 2009, down 1.5 percent from a year earlier - and the fourth year in a row the numbers have fallen. That suggests there's more going on than just a down economy. From the SF Chronicle:

Experts credit the sustained drop to a chain of developments that started in the middle of the decade. Gasoline and oil prices started rising, setting records. Drivers responded by taking fewer trips, riding mass transit, buying more fuel-efficient cars or using the most efficient cars already at their disposal. Then in 2008, the global economic meltdown gave families another incentive to save.

Some of the experts point to the $3-a-gallon threshold as a turning point for gas demand in the state.