Driving Less in America

Driving Less in America

As gasoline prices were hitting record levels in June, Americans were hitting the brakes. The L.A. Times reports. The Federal Highway Administration said that U.S. motorists drove 12.2 billion fewer miles in June than in the same month a year earlier, a drop of 4.7 percent. It was the eighth consecutive monthly drop and the biggest June decline ever, the agency said.

”They’re staying home in droves,” Doug Hecox, a spokesman for the highway administration, said of the nation’s drivers. He noted that the drop in June was particularly significant because the summer months rank historically as the busiest times for road travel in the U.S.

The falloff in driving ”is consistent with the fact that gas prices were going up so quickly and to such a high level,” said Elaine Beno, a spokeswoman for the Automobile Club of Southern California.