No, it's not your imagination - gas prices really are going up. Why?

Months after soaring fuel prices spurred U.S. drivers to cut back on their driving, demand for gasoline is slowly coming back, helping to push up depressed oil prices. Demand for gasoline has nudged up above last year's levels for the past couple of weeks, government data released Thursday show. Gas prices have been hovering under $2 a gallon since November, but now that they have been low for a while, consumers might be getting bolder about their gasoline use, analysts say. [...] The feeble U.S. economy is expected to remain a drag on gas demand and prices. While consumption is firming up, the increase from last year is tiny -- a four-week average of 0.8% last week, despite gasoline prices that are more than $1 lower than during the same period last year. Some energy experts, including the Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration, predict that this year's gasoline demand will be lower than in 2008 overall. "A return to $4 a gallon is probably not something we're going to see anytime soon," said Tom Bentz, senior energy analyst at BNP Paribas Commodity Futures in New York.

It's bad news for the rest of the world, though: