You might have heard about the story of Raquel Nelson — nearly a year ago, her 4 year-old son was killed by a drunk driver as they crossed the street with the rest of their family. Nelson and her daughter were injured, too. The drunk driver ended up serving six months of prison, and was released, despite having two prior hit and run violations on his record

Nelson, meanwhile, was charged for manslaughter because she failed to use a crosswalk that was a third of a mile away. She faces up to three years in prison.

To get citizens out of their cars and onto a newly-opened public trolley system, the city of Murcia, Spain recently embarked on a rather radical campaign: it offered people lifetime trolley passes in exchange for permanently relinquishing their cars.

Despite the growing popularity of hybrid and electric vehicles, giving up your car is still the single best way to reduce your carbon footprint. Car sharing services like Zipcar and RelayRides make a significant impact, but the bottom line is that those vehicles still contribute to poor air quality, traffic, and wear and tear on the roadways.

With oil prices at $135 dollars per barrel, the pressure is on for car makers to innovate and create more fuel efficient vehicles. Volkswagen seems to be taking this task seriously with the 1L, a prototype that is capable of traveling for 235mpg using 1 gallon of gasoline, or 100km on 1L of gas. Adding to the excitement of this breakthrough is recent news that VW plans to get this concept out to market in 2010!

General Motors CEO, Dan Akerson, would like to see the federal gasoline tax boosted by as much as $1 per gallon in order to encourage drivers to choose more fuel efficient vehicles. If you are a politician in office today, it’s of course anathema to talk about raising fuel taxes – unless of course you harbor some sort of political suicide agenda – and it’s at least mildly surprising that a Republican CEO would be a proponent of raising taxes on a product which directly, and potentially adversely, impacts the company he is running.