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American Car Use Has Declined Every Year Since 2005

We hit Peak Car eight years ago.
Image: Wikimedia

Forget what you've heard about Americans and their proud automobiles. Cars are so 20th century. So, well into the next one, Brooklyn and Facebook have gone about killing them off. My recent piece about the phenomenon struck a nerve with the internet—which itself has played a central role in diminishing the car's dominance. But there's still a lot of uncertainty about the data—had car use actually peaked, or were we simply seeing a recession-fueld lull?

Well, the latest numbers on the subject continue to support the notion that car use has indeed peaked—and it appears to have done so back in 2005.

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Over at Greentech Media, Stephen Lacey dissects a report from Advisor Perspectives, whose numbers on cars use stretch all the way to March of this year. And guess what—they confirm that the estimated miles driven peaked way back in the mid-aughts. And they're continuing to decline.

When you look at the total miles driven on all roads, they appear to have peaked in 2007. But when you correct for population growth (more people driving fewer miles) the peak comes earlier, in 2005.

These numbers offer a pretty pointed rebuke to the idea that the decline in car usage is tied strictly to the recession—which, officially, has now been over for years. More people may have eased off of car travel to save gas money in 2008, but usage was already down three years before that. Vehicle miles traveled have declined by 8.75% in just eight years.

Lacey writes that the "recession, stricter licensing policies, the rising cost of auto insurance and the movement of younger Americans to cities are all major reasons for the shift in driving behavior." I'd add in the internet as a prime killer, too—fewer young people are getting their licenses, and many experts attribute this phenomenon to the newfangled ubiquity of social media.

What's more, another recent report independently confirmed the trend, too. It seems increasingly definitive: the transit mode that for a century has doubled as the most reliably durable iconography of American culture is on the wane. Yet it's fitting for our forward-lurching moment, and the trend seems more than likely to continue well into the future. It's permanent, and sure: Why drive, after all, if you can walk and/or chat?