It seems like it was just yesterday that I was cruising down Hersheypark Drive in the finest… It seems like it was just yesterday that I was cruising down Hersheypark Drive in the finest 12-miles-per-gallon utility van an American car manufacturer has ever produced: the Ford Mark III conversion van. I’d swing by the Shell station and fill up both tanks at $2.70 per gallon and then exchange friendly but still very masculine head nods with the guy filling up his Escalade at the next pump over.

These days, it’s impossible for me to finish filling up my first tank before a brigade of Prius owners swarm around me and start chanting their mpg stats. Not that I can afford to fill my tank anyway.

But with rising gas prices and the subsequent sacrificing of our Mark IIIs, comes a few underappreciated benefits that we’re all beginning to see:

Less Traffic on the roads

The Federal Highway Administration has reported a 2.1 percent decline in overall road travel since the beginning of 2008. That means when the occasional drive to the grocery store is needed, you won’t be spending as much time reading clever bumper stickers while waiting for congestion to ease.

And studies by the Congressional Budget Office have demonstrated that people are cutting their trips when prices raise – a 0.7 percent decline in freeway trips for each 50-cent increase. It’s simple, really. With less Mark IIIs on the road, Prius owners have more of it to themselves. Maybe they’ll shut up now.

Not only is that fantastic in itself, but less cars on the road also leads to