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Comment by freehunter | Hacker News Reader

>It’s not entirely clear, though, exactly why this has happened

Really? It's not clear why miles traveled has gone down since 2004? Line up these graphs for the last 10 years [1]. Or perhaps this one [2].

Gas prices are at record levels since 2004, and unemployment among the 16-24 year old population has skyrocketed. It's not any wonder why millennials are driving less. They can't afford to drive more. The rising cost of college is putting even more strain on the pocketbooks of the young work force. The article seems to want to attribute this trend to one source and no more than one source. The real world doesn't work that way.

[1] http://gasbuddy.com/gb_retail_price_chart.aspx

[2] http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/12/22/the-global-...

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The article seems to want to attribute this trend to one source and no more than one source.

? The article calls gas prices twice as well as other economic problems as reasons for the decline. For example: "Researchers have not yet been able to disaggregate how much of our current decline in driving has been attributable to gas prices, or the economy, or changing attitudes toward car ownership or urban living"

It does say that, yes. It also says that it's not known why, and it says that further up the article than any facts. They're implying that because researchers are looking at multiple factors they have yet to filter it down to one specific cause. I'm not discounting the researchers. I'm discounting the article, and their false sense of mystery behind this trend.

I don't think that implication is the author's intention. I read that as an opening to say "researchers are still investigating the causes", not "researchers have not yet found the cause."

Why? I looked at the graph and whipped out the calculator and VMT has not "stagnated" as they say so much as dropped about 3% or so from peak.

Then look at my commute. Scroll down to "employment" (If this doesn't work simply pull the employment graph for a decade or so for your MSA from the BLS website)

http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LAUMT55333405?data_tool=XGtab...

How many people are sharing the highway with me going to and from work? Well, about 3% fewer than peak. My commute times do resemble this in that I can get home a little faster now than when I was younger.

Less jobs to drive to seems to explain 100% of the delta in VMT, very superficially. I'm sure it depends on which area you gather data from, blah blah, but it does mostly seem to be employment stats. There exists a political axe to grind WRT encouraging urban living / mass transit / changing attitudes toward car ownership, but censoring factual data and manufacturing confusion to help grind the axe is simply unethical.

Yes, it's still not clear. Your theory is a good and interesting one, but it's not clear that it's true.

I drove 45 minutes one-way to high school during my junior and senior years in '93-'95. Gas cost .99/1.09/1.19 during that time. It was fifty miles per day, in the mountains, and I got about 15MPG. So that's about $3/day or $15/week. Now it would cost nearly $12/day or $60/week.

I don't think it's all about money.

I live in NYC in large part to avoid driving. If I moved to Kirkland the lower rent would easily pay to lease, fuel, insure and maintain a luxury car, with cash left over. I'm staying here. So are my 8 million neighbours.

Luckily minimum wage has gone from $4.25/hr to $7.25/hr to keep up as expenses quadrupled. Err, um...

It would be interesting to know how much the average income has increased, more than minimum wage, and the effect of inflation on other prices would also be useful.

I'm not saying that it would lead to a different conclusion, but just that it's data you can't ignore when comparing prices across a 20 years span.

If you change "increased" to "decreased", you can find this info pretty easy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Median_US_household_income...

If you're looking for personal income rather than household income, there's a graph for that as well.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6c/Historical_med...

Also interesting to note that while car sales in the US declined steeply in '07 and '08, they are slated to have a consecutive record sales year in 2013, possibly surpassing the record year of 2005. [1]

In the last 5 years, many manufacturers have had substantial YoY growth - the luxury segment had 13.4% YoY growth in 2012. [2]

[1] http://editorial.autos.msn.com/blogs/autosblogpost.aspx?post... [2] http://www.motorauthority.com/news/1081451_bmw-tops-u-s-luxu...

Motoring is incredibly cheap in the US.

Here in the UK, petrol (gas) is over $8/US gallon. Insurance is mandatory and phenomenally expensive for young drivers - a new driver would expect to pay at least $2000 for their first year of insurance, even for a tiny and underpowered subcompact. Our driving test is quite rigorous, so most people will spend at least $1500 on learning to drive.

Only two-thirds of young Britons have a driving license and far fewer actually drive. The barriers to entry are prohibitively high and there's a growing cultural divide, between young people who see driving as an unaffordable luxury and their parents who see it as a basic necessity.

Insurance is mandatory in the US. Average insurance prices for someone under 24 years old is ~$2000 every 6 months, or $4000/yr (2600GBP/yr).

I'll agree that motoring in the UK is more expensive, but insurance isn't the reason why.

This would explain why miles driven has declined among Millenials for whom gas is a significant expense. But as I understand it, car ownership and usage has declined even among Millenials who can easily afford to buy the gas they need.

My guess for the primary factor is demographic--Millenials are choosing to live in urban areas by the greatest proportion of any generation yet. Cars are not as necessary in cities, and can be liabilities due to parking difficulty.

The key question is what will happen over time. If it's a financial issue, then Millenial car ownership and usage should go up over time as they achieve greater financial security later in life. If it's a shift to cities, that might a cultural change that is more durable.

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