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Energy

People Still Driving Less, Oil Demand Destruction

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published

Hummer_crashThe US Department of Transportation yesterday released its report on traffic volume for the month of September. Compared with 2007, miles driven fell by 4.4% during the month, and cumulative travel for 2008 dropped by 3.5%. On the basis of a moving 12-month average, travel is now about the same as it was in 2003.

The big difference is the cost of gasoline. September gasoline priceswere still very high, right around $3.50/gallon. Prices didn’t startfalling dramatically until October.

We’ll have to wait until the October report to see if falling gasolineprices have encouraged drivers to get back behind the wheel. But, tohazard a guess, I suspect that drivers are still driving less and willcontinue to do so until the overall economy picks back up. By the timethat happens, people could be used to driving less and enjoying it more.

Less consumption is the single best way to reduce US dependence onforeign oil. While not painless, high prices for gasoline and lowconsumer confidence in the overall economy may contribute topermanently reducing US oil consumption.

Paul Ausick
November 20, 2008

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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