Published: Sun, Jun. 08, 2008 12:30AM

Modified Sun, Jun. 08, 2008 03:24AM

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"This summer we were thinking of taking a trip to Carowinds or Busch Gardens, but we're rethinking it because it's going to cost so much," said Sarah Frantz, 16, a Clayton High junior.

Frantz and her father have switched cars to cut the cost of his longer daily drive. He takes her thrifty Toyota, and she gets the Chevy pickup.

"It gets about 15 miles per gallon on the highway, if I'm really careful," she said. "I'm always looking at my gas gauge. No quick starts or braking, just to make sure I'm not burning any more than I need to."

Togetherness

The economics of driving changes when teens go off to college. Friends live together, and class is a short walk across campus.

Faisal Lakhany, 19, a sophomore at UNC-Chapel Hill, couldn't afford to take his family's hulking Chevy Suburban to summer school. These days, with gas pump credit purchases limited to $50 or $60, it takes three swipes of the card to fill a Suburban's 40-gallon tank.

Instead, Lakhany borrows his cousin's Acura. He car pools to movies and restaurants. Sometimes he collects gas money from his riders.

"It's definitely cramping my social life," Lakhany said. "My father says you have this much to spend, and don't go over it."

Some teens are adjusting more cheerfully to life away from their cars.

"Just driving around with my friends, just hanging out, we stopped that," said Manny Opoku, 19, a UNC-CH junior. "It's OK, because now I'm getting more of a chance to play basketball with friends and exercising."

Instead of driving to Wal-Mart to buy toothpaste, Opoku walks to Ken's Quickee Mart, a convenience store near his Granville Towers dorm.

He's getting to know his neighborhood and getting to know his fellow students. In the era of $4 gas, lunch lasts longer and conversation runs deeper.

"Before, you would just eat lunch and talk about sports, talk about girls -- and then go, 'Hey, I'm leaving.' And get in your car and leave. But now, because gas is so high, there's nowhere to go."

These days, Opoku and his friends linger at the table. They talk about politics, their studies and themselves.

"You run out of superficial things to say. If you want to keep the conversation going, you've got to talk about something deep. And you like it," Opoku said.

"Now we're moving at a different pace."