Oil prices at this level take us into a new world – “Break Point” – where the question is not only “how high can the price go?”, but also “what will be the response?” Is this the point at which oil begins to lose its almost total domination in transport?

Yes, the current high oil price may be a demand shock triggered by what had been several years of excellent global economic growth, and thus more benign than supply shocks caused by 1970s-style disruptions. It is amplified by a dollar shock caused by the fall in the dollar and by the embrace by financial investors of oil (and other commodities) as an asset class.