People rushing to the petrol station to fill up their cars. Government press officers running round in circles trying to untangle the latest ministerial comment. Newspaper headline writers displaying their craft at its technical best.

The cost of motoring – or more precisely the cost of fuel, as the costs of insurance and the vehicles themselves rarely gets mentioned – has been one of the big issues this week.

Yet for all the talk about high fuel prices and petrol shortages, it hasn’t triggered any blip in people looking for alternatives. Take a look at Google’s search volume data for the last 30 days and there has been no surge in people wanting to find out about train times, bus routes or cycle routes: