Here’s yet more evidence in the drop of car use, this time from the U.S. Federal Highway Administration, not known previously to have been captured by the Greenies:
Recession? Sure, at least in part – but clearly only one part of a larger trend. Brad Plummer in the Washington Post explores:
Notice that, in previous recessions, driving barely budged at all. After 2007, by contrast, vehicle-miles traveled took a big nosedive and never recovered. Of course, one difference is that this time around, oil prices are still high …
There’s also a theory floating around that Americans—especially young Americans—are simply no longer as car crazy as they were in the 1970s. In 1976, three-quarters of all 17-year-olds had drivers’ licenses. By 2008, that was down to 49 percent.
Last year, Zipcar, the car-sharing company, did a survey that found that 67 percent of 25- to 34-year-olds would prefer to drive less, especially if alternatives were available. (Mind you, Zipcar is hardly a disinterested party here, but other surveys have yielded similar results.) …
Nowadays, however, teens can socialize via Facebook or texting instead—in the Zipcar survey, more than half of all young adults said they’d rather chat online than drive to meet their friends.
