Driving Boom or Bust: The Decline of Annual Driving Miles Per Capita

According to a report recently released by USPIRG.com, after sixty years of almost constant increases in the annual number of miles Americans drive, Americans have decreased their driving per-capita for eight years in a row. Since 2004, driving miles per person are down especially sharply among Millennials, America’s largest generation that will increasingly dominate national transportation trends.

 

Some skeptics have suggested that the apparent end of the Driving Boom might be just a temporary hiccup in the trend toward more driving for Americans. By the time Americans took notice of the decline in driving, the economy was in deep recession. For some, the culprit behind this decline was the poor economy of the last several years.

So the question became, would economic growth bring back rapid increases in driving?

This study finds that declining rates of driving do not correspond with how badly states suffered economically in recent years. On the contrary:

• Among the 23 states in which driving miles per person declined faster than the national average, only six saw unemployment increase faster than the nation as a whole.
• Among the 10 states with the largest declines in driving per person, only two rank among the ten with largest increases in unemployment.
• Among the 23 states where driving declined faster than the national average, only 11 saw faster-than-average declines in the employed share of their working-age population.
• Among the 10 states with the greatest reductions in the employed share of population, only two were also among the ten states with the largest reductions of driving (Georgia and the District of Columbia)

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Their conclusion then? In the view of USPIRG researchers, the evidence suggests that the nation’s per capita decline in driving cannot be dismissed as a temporary side effect of the recession. While certainly a contributing factor and an economic rebound could be expected to have some upward lift on driving, the recession does not appear to be the prime cause of the fall off in driving over the past eight years. Nor is it clear that future economic growth would lead to a resumption of the postwar Driving Boom. Policy makers can stop wondering whether American driving trends are changing. They should focus carefully on these trends, and start adapting policies to match them.

State Penalties for Texting and Driving: $0 to $10,000

An article at Mother Jones points out how wildly fluctuating the states deal with texting and driving. As they point out, the good news: fatal car crashes are on the decline. The bad news: fatal car crashes involving cell phone use—anything from texting to talking to reaching for a ringing phone—are on the rise. In fact, the leading cause of death for teenage drivers is now texting, not drinking, with nearly a dozen teens dying each day in a texting-related car crash. Stark figures like this have driven 46 states to pass legislation banning texting and driving. But texting fines vary wildly across the country, and you'll end up paying a little or a lot depending on where you got caught.

In California, the maximum penalty for a first-time offender is just $20, the lowest in the country, while Alaska will slap you with a whopping $10,000 fine and a year in prison. Meanwhile, some states don't allow cops to pull drivers over for texting, but can impose a texting fine on top of another penalty, like speeding. Confused yet? Keep your eyes on the road: Mother Jones has rounded up maximum first-offense fines for fully licensed drivers in each state (click here to see the full table), along with a few more sobering stats on using your phone while behind the wheel. Remember: local laws may apply even if there's no statewide ban where you're driving, but to be safe—literally—just don't text and drive.

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