One in three to stop non-essential trips if fuel hits £1.50 a litre

The survey showed 35 per cent of motorists would cut out social trips at that price – with one in five planning to hang up their car keys if petrol tops £2 at the pumps.

The results come as both petrol and diesel remain within a few pence of their record highs, set in May last year.

Further turmoil in the oil market could be triggered if Iran goes ahead with a threat yesterday to ban oil exports to the European Union for up to 15 years.

The poll, of 1,000 drivers, found the increasing cost of fuel had changed the way nearly four in five drivers used their cars.

This included 1 per cent of those questioned saying they had given up their vehicles to cut household bills. A further 7 per cent had cut their motoring by more than 100 miles a week.

Nearly a third of motorists said they would consider buying an electric or hybrid-engine car as their next vehicle.

Tobias van der Meer, managing director of insurer Hastings Direct, which commissioned the poll, said: “Our survey clearly shows the pressure motorists are feeling on their finances.

“Reducing mileage and driving safely can help motorists cut the cost of their fuel bills, but ultimately they cannot and will not keep be able to keep on paying higher and higher petrol prices.”

Automobile Association president Edmund King said: “There is no doubt that near-record prices at the pumps and the economic situation are driving motorists off the road.

“An AA Populus poll of more than 20,000 drivers conducted last week showed that 69 per cent of drivers were cutting back on journeys, cutting back on other expenditure, or cutting back on both due to the high cost of fuel. This sends a strong message to government to abandon any plans for fuel duty increases when pump prices are having such a negative effect.”

Iran is considering banning all oil exports to the EU within days in retaliation to EU plans to stop all Iranian crude imports by July amid deepening tension over Tehran’s nuclear programme.

The country’s oil minister said the Islamic state would soon stop exporting crude to “some” countries. Rostam Qasemi did not identify the countries, but was speaking less than a week after the EU’s 27 member states agreed to stop importing crude from Iran from 1 July

Its deputy oil minister said prices would surge if the EU stopped importing Iranian crude. EU countries imported some 700,000 barrels a day last autumn.

However, analysts said the world is likely to have more oil this summer thanks to additional output from Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Libya that will make up for any lost from Iran.