From Bloomberg

Anyone wondering why Americans show no signs of abandoning their vehicles as gasoline fetches almost $4 gallon can find the answer in Europe, where the price of petrol hasn't been that low in at least six years.

Gasoline rose 30 percent in the U.S. this year to a record $3.962 a gallon on May 29, according to AAA, the nation's biggest motoring club. In Germany, a gallon costs $8.33, more than double 2002 levels. The highest is $9.69 in Norway, where taxes are designed to curb consumption in the world's third-biggest exporter of crude oil, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
From the Economist (prices are in liters and there are ~3.78 liters in a gallon for us non-metric types )

HALF of the world's population enjoys fuel subsidies. This estimate, from Morgan Stanley, implies that almost a quarter of the world's petrol is sold at less than the market price. The cheapest petrol is in Venezuela, at 5 cents per litre. That makes China's pump price of 79 cents seem expensive, but even this is a bargain compared with $1.04 in the United States and $2.35 in Germany (see chart).

As the gap has widened between soaring international prices and fixed domestic prices, so has the cost of subsidies. Indeed, budgetary strains are now forcing some governments to lift prices.