Our fuel prices are completely ridiculous, but that's because two thirds is tax.
How many hours a week do you have to drive, on average?
Well, to and from work, which is anything from fifteen minutes to thirty per trip. Sometimes out to lunch, perhaps another five minutes. Driving daughter to figure skating a couple of times a week is another ten or fifteen minutes.
It adds up.
Yeah.... I know it varies quite a bit by specific location (cities are obviously less), but my understanding is (broadly/on average) folks in Europe tend to have less distance they have to cover with their cars in the first place to get their needs met in their day-to-day lives. My weekly driving average is... more. And I live close to my job.
Not that that really makes it better, but I had to insert my "uphill, both ways" commentary, here.
Yes, we supposedly live closer to where we work, here. Also, our societies are built differently from yours, according to a friend who lives in Indianapolis.
That was one of the things that struck me when I visited the US. I had planned to walk from the Pentagon Memorial to a mall that, according to a map, was within walking distance but realised that there was no way to do it. The place was built for cars only.
The same was true to varying degrees in Bethesda, but surprisingly, not so much in NY from the little I saw.