The Price of Gas -- a different look

Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution looks at Gas prices in different countries:

Gas prices around the world
The price of gas varies around the world, due to the vagaries of exchange rates but mostly because of taxes and subsidies. Assuming your car gets 35 miles per gallon, here is how far $20 of gas will take you in various countries around the world:

• Germany: 127 miles
• Japan: 147 miles
• United States: 342 miles
• China: 385 miles
• Saudi Arabia: 771 miles
• Venezuela: 4,624 miles

The data are from Foreign Policy, March/April 2005, p.18. Here is a related data set.

Fascinating... According to that second data set, the UK has it the worst with prices over $5USD per gallon. OUCH! They have a lot of off-shore oil deposits, why is the price so high? Environmental taxes? And what are these doing to directly benefit the UK Citizen...