autoevolution
 

American Drivers Counting Fewest Miles Since 2004

After the gas prices skyrocketed, the effects were deeply felt by Americans who drove 15.5 billion fewer miles in the first half of the year, touching the lowers marker since 2004. A report by the Federal Highway Administration revealed the fact that US drivers logged 1,453 trillion miles, down 1.1 percent over the first half of 2010. Another similar activity was recorded back in 2004, when American drivers logged 1,451 trillion miles, according to The Detroit News.

Furthermore, this year’s six month count as revealed by the Federal Highway Administration is down 44 billion miles over the all-time high for the first-half travel set in 2007, which was of 1,497 billion miles. The travel fell 1.4 percent to 259.1 billion miles down to 3.8 billion miles in June. The most significant changes were observed in the South-Gulf Region, with 2 percent.

Until June, the percentages fell constantly through a period of 4 months. The traffic on rural roads decreased with 1.7 percent compared to 1 percent on urban roads. As Americans drive less, chances are they might hold onto older vehicles for longer periods of time. The most significant changes happened in Michigan where travel fell 2.2 percent in May meaning a total of 8.2 billion miles.

Also, in June traffic was down 1.6 percent resulting in 8.6 billion miles traveled. Furthermore, Americans drove 3 trillion miles in 2010 meaning a growth of 0.6 percent or 1.4 billion miles more than 2009. The study was based on 4,000 traffic locations around US.
If you liked the article, please follow us:  Google News icon Google News Youtube Instagram X (Twitter)
 

Would you like AUTOEVOLUTION to send you notifications?

You will only receive our top stories