There are significant fears about the parabolic increase in the cost of oil. Even now that demand has started to drop, prices continue to climb and some believe that climb isn't going to end. But there are two reasons why prices aren't dropping for gasoline even as demand has declined.
First, we're currently undergoing a period where oil and gas companies are working to maximize profits. Maximum profits are not actually met at the point where prices meet the maximum sustainable demand for said price. Instead, demand can actually drop while prices increase further, and it will not diminish profits. Instead, there is a point further along, with further diminished demand, where profits finally flatten. Once this happens, oil and gasoline prices should stabilize so long as supply remains constant. Of course, if the supply diminishes, then prices will increase further, but profits will continue to diminish and be reliant on demand being the same as demand, rather than on maximizing profits.
Second, speculators are artificially inflating the price of oil. Oil has become the Next Big Investment, and there is this delusion among investors that since Oil is a needed commodity, it won't suffer the same devastation that other investments (real estate, the internet, electronics, etc.) have gone through. This is a pipe dream. Housing is essential for Americans... but the housing market is suffering seizures and is contracting in on itself. Oil will do the same. In three years, the Oil Bubble will burst and we will see the oil companies begging for Uncle Sam for handouts and subsidies. They'll claim that the taxes against them are destroying them and that if something isn't done, then it will be bad. And it will. For the oil companies.
Related to this is new technologies that are coming out to shift our transportation network from oil-based fuel to electric-based. Forget biofuels. It's another pipe dream that is going to damage the food supply. (Harvesting algae and turning that into oil may hold greater promise, and will likely become the mainstay of biofuels in the future, but it will not become a big enough source of biofuel to fuel the nation's automobile fleet due to the risks of contaminants that can render the harvest unusable for biofuel.) In 2010, Tesla Motors is planning on coming out with an electric passenger car for around $50,000. Other start-up companies likewise have electric vehicles that they are trying to market... and within a couple of years we'll see these come out and become viable.
The stake in Big Oil's heart will be when one of the major automobile companies presents its own reasonably-priced electric automobile and mass-produces it. That company will dominate the market and become rich rather quickly. The other automobile companies will rush to follow and get a piece of the pie... and a new generation of electric vehicles will emerge, capable of breaking Big Oil's stranglehold on the world.