WASHINGTON – Do you drive a lot? Do you spend more time behind the wheel than the average person? Now you can find out for sure.
A study by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety and the Urban Institute details how much Americans drive, when and where. It finds that the average motorist drives 29.2 miles a day – 10,658 miles a year. That’s a round trip of 46 minutes.
Scott Henderson, of Potomac Falls, Virginia, laughs when he hears that.
“I travel about 22 miles a day, round trip, and it takes me about 80 minutes,” Henderson says.
And while women make more trips, men end up driving 35 percent more than women. Teenagers, and seniors older than 75, drive the least. Motorists between 30 and 49 years old drive the most.
Martha Meade, AAA’s Manager of Public and Government Affairs in Virginia, believes the data can make a difference.
Says Meade: “Having this type of data will allow AAA to work with others in the traffic safety community to dig even deeper into an analysis of all of the factors impacting crashes and to continue to work to reduce them whenever and wherever possible.”
Other findings from the survey:
- The age groups that drive the least are teenagers and people over age 75.
- Drivers who say they live in the country or a small town drive more than those who say they live in medium-sized towns or cities.
- Regionally, Southerners drive the most (11,826 miles a year); Northeasterners, the least (8.468).
The study is based on telephone interviews with 3,319 drivers. It’s the first such comprehensive survey since 2009, the second since 2001.
WTOP’s Kathy Stewart contributed to this report.
