Americans sure do drive a lot. In fairness, there are a lot of us, plus the country itself is pretty big, plus our passenger railroad network isn’t exactly cutting edge anymore. Then again, driving itself is its own reward, at least when you’re not stuck in traffic. So are we on these roads because we want to be, or because we have to be? Who’s behind the wheel most often? And where are we putting in the miles?
The good folks over at KBB have crunched the numbers, and now, the habits of the American driver have been exposed for all to see. All in, in 2023 (the most recent year with complete data) Americans put in a grand total of 2.9 trillion miles. That is… a lot, like way more than I would have guessed. That’s not even counting heavy-duty vehicles like semis, which obviously cover a lot of miles on their own.
It gets a little tricky figuring out how this works on average, but this works out to about 14,779 miles per household. That number has been steadily increasing since the pandemic lockdown of 2020, when we still managed to average 12,700 miles per household, even though we were all supposed to be staying inside. But that’s still quite a bit less than the 17,800 miles that households averaged in 2017, the highest year on record. I would guess that the hybrid office and work from home revolution has put a permanent dent in commuting miles, though again, those numbers are steadily rising again.
Men drive on Mars, women drive on Venus
That said, for those who do still commute to the office, they’re still putting in about the same time. The average American one-way commute was 26.8 minutes in 2023, more or less flat with the 27.6 minutes it took in 2019. A notable 9% of drivers took over an hour to get to work.
Shocking no one, men and women do drive pretty differently. For commutes, men averaged 28.4 minutes vs 25 minutes for women. In total, men drove 20% more miles per day than women in 2022. That gap gets particularly wide among the elderly: men drive 100% more than women at ages 65 and older. I guess grandpa wants to spend a little more time in that classic muscle car he still has. Retirement itself has a pretty major impact, since finally ditching the daily commute leads to a 30% drop in miles driven. By contrast, at working ages, men drive nearly a third more than women.
Who drives the most? That would be men between the ages 34 and 54, who put in 44% more miles than the average American. Least, obviously, are the youths between 16 and 19, who are too busy with their phones and their terrible music to drive, putting in 48% less than the average. This despite the fact that Gen Z claims to love driving cars. Kids these days!
Which states drive the most (and least)?
So that’s America all united. What happens when we look at these states divided? I’ll be honest here: I was expecting high-income states to lead, since deeper pockets would buy more cars and be more willing to pay for gas for non-essential trips. Turns out, it’s not average income that seems to matter, but population density. That’s how Wyoming wins the driving competition, putting in 21,575 miles per driver, or 50% more than America as a whole. The Equality State is followed by Mississippi, Missouri, and New Mexico.
On the other end, New York is last place for driving, with only 9,750 miles covered by the average driver in a year. Remind me, are there any major population centers in New York? Maybe one where it’s famously terrible to drive? I can’t remember. Anyway, the Empire State is followed by Rhode Island, Washington, and, maybe more surprisingly, Alaska. (Technically, Washington, D.C. has the smallest mileage at 6,678, but of course, it’s not a state yet.)
Want to pump up those numbers yourself? Treat yourself to a road trip sometime. Maybe don’t even have a destination in mind. Americans only managed 2.9 trillion miles in 2023; go on and make it a nice big round number instead.
