How much does it cost to drive your car?

The cost of filling up the tank forms a significant portion of our impression of the cost of driving a car. There are several other less-visible out-of-pocket expenses such as maintenance, insurance, and the car payment itself, but there are also various hidden costs of driving. The site "What does Driving Really Cost" shows us some of the hidden costs and contains some startling facts:

• Driving a car is one of the most dangerous things we do. For people 2-24 years old, it is the most likely way you'll die.
  
• $50B of our defense budget is protecting shipping lanes and oil fields in the Middle East, Nigeria and Venezuela. This doesn't come from road use tolls or fuel taxes but from income and payroll taxes.
  
• Baby-boomers will have consumed 2/3 of all the petroleum there ever was in the US.
  
• 60% of our trade deficit comes from either oil or cars.
  
• One-third of expenses paid out under federal medical assistance programs are for injuries sustained in car crashes.
  

Cars are suicide, either financially and slowly or in 80 MPH collisions. Why doesn't this get the same attention as lowering cholesterol, the "War on Cancer", or even Viagra?

This site also calculates the average US citizen's expenditures per year for the priviledge of driving. The average is high enough that most people can buy a home for what is being spent on a car.