Americans Drive 30 Billion Fewer Miles

Not since the oil crisis of 1979 has the number of miles driven by Americans dropped so significantly — specifically, by 30 billion.

The drop took place from November to April, and it shows no signs of slowing as gas prices maintain their record-busting peaks. Previously, high prices at the pump would change driver behavior temporarily, but experts now think some of these new fuel-saving habits might stick.

Total miles traveled declined by only 1%, but this is impressive simply because the number of cars on the road grows by 1% to 2% each year, which means Americans had to cut back quite a bit to achieve that 1% decline. The number of miles traveled is also equal to 2005 levels, when roughly 8 million fewer people lived in the United States.

How will this trend continue? It’s likely that people will begin looking for housing closer to where they work to cut back on commutes. Traffic patterns may change as drivers adjust to less long-distance driving, and as the Federal Highway Trust Fund loses money from fewer people paying the federal gas tax, the government will have to figure out ways to make up for that shortfall, like increased tolls.

Drivers Cut Back By 30B Miles (USA Today)

Comments

That's a good news

I hate to say this, but high gas prices will be good for our nation in the long run, as soon as we kick this gasoline habit, perhaps our economy won't be doomed when all that oil runs out within the a few decades... but of course, maybe OPEC will try to keep us hooked on their poison and reduce their prices to ensure their income till they run dry.

We've got hundreds of years of oil but I agree with everything else that you've said.

The part that will really suck is as we cut our use of fuel, the government is going to lose a lot of gas tax revenue and will have to make it up somehow. Even though we are driving less and using the roads less, they won't be able to reduce their spending.

I'd like to know your source of information in regard to having hundreds of years of oil left, Tim?

This is great news! John McHypocrite really doesn't understand economics if he proposes to do something about global warming AND drill for more oil and gas. If the price is low, people will buy (and burn) more increasing the global warming problem. The best solution to global warming is to charge people for the externalities of their actions, such as CO2 emissions. Not to mention congestion, et. al.

What I would love to see is a politician come out and propose a credit to purchase a new high-MPG car regardless of technology. Say $10k for 2009-2010 for a car that averages 30mpg, then 2011-2013 35mpg and 2013-2015 40mpg. This credit is only available to people who make less than, say $50k/year. At the same time, impose a gas-price floor tax - if the price falls below $4/gallon, a tax is added which maintains the $4 price at the pump, increasing to $5/gallon in 2010 and $6/gallon in 2014. This way, Americans will get used to paying more for gas, the price will remain stable (ie. families can count on the price and make vehicle purchases appropriately) AND we can insure that low-income households have a means to get more efficient cars.

When gas was a dollar a gallon, driving was basically free, and we all developed bad habits. Driving fewer miles is beneficial on many levels, and is the only way we'll get stable prices for fuel. I really like some of LM's ideas - give incentives to the people who have been hit hardest by the recent runup in gas prices.

Tim, theoretically, yes, if the future is a lot like the present, with the US being the dominant oil consumer, then yes there's a hundred years worth of oil left for us alone. But you don't factor greatly increased consumption from new economies like India, China, Brazil, Russia, Vietnam and many others who now see industrialization as the only way to provide their citizens with an improved standards of living.

I read an article that said the earth had an estimated total of 3 trillion barrels of oil, and we've used about 1 trillion barrels so far. The big question is how easy is it to recover what's left and at what cost?

LM, I've heard this idea floated but I don't see how it works in practice. If there is a price floor, then the gas companies will have every incentive to keep the price at or above that floor, regardless of demand or the actual cost to deliver it, especially if the floor is designed to bring in additional revenue for the programs you mentioned. Even if the gas tax were adjusted every month to reflect the average price of gas on the street, I still don't see how that works.

I am not a policy-maker, so I am not sure how it would work - it would need to be something along those lines. It could be tagged to the wholesale price of a barrel of oil. Fixing prices, however, is very communist and may not work in practice. What could work is simply raising the gas tax if the price falls below $3.50 from 18.4 cents (ridiculous) to $1. Then, leave it alone and if the price falls again to $3.5 raise the tax by another dollar. At the same time, they need to index the tax to inflation by making it a percent per gallon. This way the price automatically increases to maintain infrastructure revenues.

Finally, excess funds can be used to not only support credits to purchase more efficient cars, but public transport funding can be increased. This way, we can buy more buses and increase rail capacity where it makes more sense.

Gas just needs to come down to about $2.50 a gallon. PERIOD! You people are insane for WANTING to keep it at astronomincal levels. First of all, low income families can barely get by now. As far as credits go for buying new hybrid vehicles. It sounds nice, but the reality is that at these levels of gas prices, most people have to continue buying used cars that are 5-15 years old. Sometimes older. Who can afford new cars? You would have to make the credit about 80% of the price of the car. Let's not keep punishing people for the grandiose dreams of some environmental wackos who probably don't drive that much anyway. Where we leave, they don't even have buses in our town. Everybody lives in the country and drives about 30-50 miles roundtrip to work each day. This is the real world we live in.

Oh, and by the way. As far as something like electric cars go...what if tomorrow everybody in the country woke up and had an electric car. What do you think it would do to our power grid. The one that, on a hot summer afternoon, often flickers or even causes mild to extreme brownouts across parts of the country. I can tell you what it would do, it would melt!! We could not handle that type of increase in useage of our power supply. Besides, where does electricity come from? Coal, for the most part. How do you feel about building several new power plants to handle the consumption. Most environmentalists scream at that thought. What about ethanol? A fuel made from our food supply...there's a brilliant thought. We have already seen skyrocketing food costs PRIOR to the floods currently hitting the midwest due to corn going to fuel and feeding the country. NOW we have corn bushels selling at over $8.00 a bushel, not to mention wheat, soy beans, etc because of the flooding.

Actually, I think Doc Brown had it right in "Back to the Future". Let's have a tiny nuclear reactor *Mr. Fusion" on every vehicle that takes excess garbage and banana peels. Hey, I ain't kiddin'...

Drove fewer miles? That doesn't really necessary mean less oil consumption.

Just went into my bank and observed the drive through counter. There were folks sitting there BURNING GAS for 10 minutes while they can just get their behind off the car and walk inside.

Hey Russel - just because you choose to live in a place where you drive 30-50 mile to work doesn't mean everyone in America did it. The average commute and the average trip length is MUCH MUCH shorter. On the order of a few miles at most. If you wish to live way out in exurbia you need to pay for it.

Small cars that get over 30mpg are in the 12-16k range, well within a $10,000 credit to purchase. You can also have a program similar to food stamps, that keeps the price for very low income families at $2/gallon no matter what the price at the pump. They still have an incentive to get a more efficient car, however, with the $10k purchase assistance and having to pay for gas. Nothing should be free.

Here's the problem. Gas SHOULD be $2.50 based on availability. T. Boone Pickens himself has stated that oil is WAY overpriced and should be about $80.00 a barrel. Unfortunately, you have market speculators who have greedily increased the price of oil, based on no justification whatsover, to increase their own portfolios. Whenever there is a small maintenance problem or a storm brewing in the Atlantic, the price of oil goes up because they THINK it might affect production. Of course, gas prices jump up exactly the same amount at every station in town, no matter if it is Exxon, B-P, etc at the same hour as the other one. This isn't market manipulation?
As far as commuting only a couple of miles, how many of them are sitting in traffic jams for hours on end burning fuel? (By the way, I wouldn't trade our way of living for the city for anything). The fact is that we need to find other sources of fuel, but you cannot just increase the price at the pump that much and expect people to be able to pay. I hate elitists who think that we need to pay more at the pump, or who can actually afford a new car out of their small change. Any kind of government program you are talking about would basically give cars away to lower income people. Who is going to pay for that. This government cannot absorb that type of thing, so it is unrealistic to even propose. Besides, artificial price structures only result in the manufacturers RAISING the price even more. That is the way many businesses operate. It is simple economics. GM states that they are losing money. They only have cars priced as low as they can to get people to buy cars. If, in their opinion, people can afford X now, then they can still afford X after a rebate. If we add a supposed tax rebate to allow more people to buy cars, GM will raise the price of the vehicles because they figure they can still sell the same amount of vehicles and make a greater profit.
There is no easy fix, but people need fuel to get around and $4.00 a gallon is just punishing too many people. It NEEDS to come down.

Isn't part of the reason people are speculating on oil (and driving up prices) because of the weakness of the dollar?

Therefore, wouldn't it be right to lay the blame right at the governments door for driving the economy down the pan over the last 8 years? If the dollar were stronger then less people would be making the price of oil artificially high...

Yes, that is true. A large part of this problem is the weak dollar. Because of this, many people are going to the commodities market to make their money as it has always been considered "safer". Of course, this all fuels (no pun intended) the assertion that oil prices are higher than they should be.
Now we have this debate that oil should be drilled off of our coasts (they should); however many people believe that the oil will stay in the U.S. We forget that, once drilled, it is not the United States' oil, it belongs to Exxon, etc. And they don't like their gasoline sitting unsold in storage tanks. So if Americans cut back on their driving (as they have), you would think it would lower our gas prices. Wrong. Exxon instead takes the extra gasoline sitting in storage tanks and sells it to China and other emerging economies.
That's really the part that sucks the most, considering all of the tax breaks and such that these companies get off of old Uncle Sam.