Americans Driving Less
Posted: Tuesday, 1st July 2008, 2:53 pm
The Americans may not be as concerned about green matters as environmentalists would like, but there are two things the do concern them: fuel security and the dollar in the pocket.
As the price of fuel at the pump hits ever higher highs (though still much lower than the UK and the rest of Europe), Americans are driving less for the sixth month in a row.
US Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters said that Americans drove 1.4 billion fewer highway miles in April 2008 than at the same time a year earlier and 400 million miles less than in March of this year. She added that vehicle miles travelled (VMT) on all public roads for April 2008 fell 1.8 percent as compared with April 2007 travel. This marks a decline of nearly 20 billion miles travelled this year, and nearly 30 billion miles travelled since November.
American car owners have tolled up an unbroken growth in miles travelled each year for 27 years, but 2007 saw the first drop in miles travelled since 1980, down from 3,014 billion miles to 3,003 billion miles in 2007, with 2008 set to continue the downward trend. Taking the rolling twelve months figures to April, not since 2005 have so few miles been travelled.
Secretary Peters said:
"We're burning less fuel as energy costs change driving patterns, steer people toward more fuel efficient vehicles and encourage more to use transit."
The Secretary noted that data show midsize SUV sales were down last month 38 percent over May of last year; car sales, which had accounted for less than half of the industry volume in 2007, rose to 57 percent in May. She said past trends have shown Americans will continue to drive despite high gas prices, but will drive more fuel efficient vehicles consuming less fuel. "History shows that we're going to continue to see congested roads while gas tax revenues decline even further," she said.
Funding Gap
You would hope the Government would be cock-a-hoop that miles travelled and sales of SUVs were dropping, but the Secretary seemed to be more concerned about the loss in revenue for the federal Highway Trust Fund, noting that it will receive "less revenue from gasoline and diesel sales – 18.4 cents per gallon and 24.4 cents per gallon, respectively."
Jim Ray, Acting Federal Highway Administrator, said:
"As positive as any move toward greater fuel efficiency is, we need to make sure we have the kind of sustainable funding measures in place to support needed highway and transit improvements well into the future."
, highlighting the need to find a more sustainable and effective way to fund highway construction and maintenance, said U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters.
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