I Would Drive 5000 Miles

A quote from a recent Times article (U.S. Gasoline Rises Above $4 A Gallon For First Time) was pretty striking to me:

A survey issued last week found that 74 percent of Americans would change their driving habits if gasoline were to top $4 per gallon.

If gasoline prices hit $5 a gallon, 85 percent of Americans would cut out nonessential driving, consolidate errands, carpool, walk or bike, according to the survey by Ipsos Public Affairs.

<sarcasm>What?! People might actually start acting as if oil were a valuable resource? And realize that easy motoring convenience has a non-negligible price?! You're kidding!! Carpooling and consolidating errands?! Cutting out nonessential driving?!?! What madness is this country being driven to?! This American way of life is non-negotiable!! Dick Cheney told us so!</sarcasm>

In case I haven't shared it before, here is a great Times graph showing gasoline per gallon price, normalized to 2005 dollars. It shows that if you factor in inflation, the 1981 peak was over $3/gallon. But apparently, we’ve blown past that record now.


I consider myself very fortunate (and happy) that I made life choices letting me minimize my driving. I have filled my gas tank only five times in the past six months, and that includes a 700-mile round trip from Boston to Ithaca (3 people in the car each way, in case you were wondering). Most of the remaining driving was for work (reimbursed at 50.5¢/mile). Owning my dorkmobile-bicycle-trailer also makes this lifestyle possible. Minimal car use also works well with tandem parking—my car sits in the back spot, so JMD and I rarely have to do the car shuffle.

Here’s some average mileage data (per vehicle and per household) from the Energy Information Administration:

An average vehicle, therefore, traveled farther in 1994 than in 1988: 11,400 miles per year compared with 10,200 miles per year (Figure 3.2). Because the number of vehicles per household remained steady at about 1.8 from 1988 through 1994, per-vehicle and per-household mileage grew at about same rate. The per-household average rose from 18,600 miles in 1988 to 21,100 miles in 1994.


So compared to ~12,000 miles/year per vehicle, I’ve consistently held it to ~5000/year, since starting grad school and then returning to Boston:


Yeah, you can really see the effect of ditching the Cambridge-to-495 daily commute. Of course, currently, my transportation expenses are displaced to the other modes that I use (CharlieCard, bicycle parts). But if you add up my MBTA costs for Q1+Q2 2008, they were: $180. Difference between driving 5,000 vs. 12,000 miles with my current vehicle: ~$1120/year. Hellsyeah.

In case there is any non-overlap on my friendslist, arcticturtle had a post on this topic that made me laugh out loud (“not to gloat, but…”):

when we bought our hybrid Honda Insight in 2000, lots of people told us it wouldn't be worth it - we wouldn't save enough gas to make up the expense of buying it (though, really, it wasn't much more than a "comparable" nonhybrid, whatever that is.)

We didn't argue. We figured driving clean was worth spending more. We wanted to help foster the improving technology. Plus, surprisingly few terrorist organizations are funded by Japanese automotive engineers.

Of course, I do realize that the rise in fuel prices is going to have an effect on the overall economy—everybody is going to take a price hit, given the national infrastructure (transportation, food, distribution of goods) we’ve built up based on cheap fuel (see the shipping container post).

Finally, I have to direct folks to an On Point episode on WBUR on the topic of oil prices. It grabbed my interest strongly enough that I ended up sitting in my car in the Whole Foods parking lot, to catch the whole episode. One striking piece of information: the United States consumes 33% of world’s road fuel, with only 5% of the population. It was mostly information that I knew and agree with, but it was still worth a listen.