American Driving Survey: 2024

Abstract

Introduction

This Research Brief provides highlights from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety’s 2024 American Driving Survey, which quantifies the daily driving of the U.S. population in 2024 and compares results to 2023 and 2022. Similar to 2023, this Research Brief analyzes the age of vehicles driven by the American public and explores differences by population groups. This year, new analyses of vehicle engine type are included. Vehicle age and engine type are important components of both crash risk and environmental impact, as newer vehicles are equipped with more advanced safety features, and alternative engines can reduce emissions.

Methodology

Members of a pre-recruited research panel were invited to participate in an online or telephone interview in which they were asked to report basic information about all of the travel that they did on the day before the interview. Approximately 5,100 participants were interviewed each year, with interviews spread approximately evenly over all days of the year. The survey was administered in English and in Spanish, primarily online but also by telephone to increase the survey’s coverage of the population.

Estimates of daily driving were obtained by computing the mean numbers of trips, minutes, and miles of driving reported by respondents. Estimates of trip-level characteristics, including the proportion of trips by category, mean minutes, and miles per driving trip, were obtained from a dataset of all driving trips reported by respondents. Estimates of trip-level characteristics by vehicle age, including the proportion of trips, mean minutes, and miles per driving trip, were estimated using data from a dataset including all driving trips where respondents reported the year of the vehicle. Estimates of total trips, minutes, and miles driven by all drivers nationwide annually were obtained by multiplying daily driver-level means by 365 to produce annualized statistics and then multiplying by the estimated total number of drivers in the United States.

Statistics reported in this Research Brief are based on interviews performed between January 1, 2022, and December 31, 2024. Data were weighted to account for each respondent’s probability of having been invited to participate in the survey and to align the demographic characteristics of the respondents with those of the U.S. population.

Key Findings

• 94.2% of U.S. residents ages 16 years and older drove at least occasionally in 2023, statistically unchanged from 2023 and 2022.
• In 2024, drivers made an average of 2.44 driving trips per day, spent 60.4 minutes driving, and traveled 31.1 miles daily, with no statistically significant differences from 2023.
• Projecting these results to the national population, drivers collectively made 232 billion trips, spent 96 billion hours driving, and drove 2.95 trillion miles in 2024.
• Some of the travel patterns reported by population groups were consistent with both previous years’ trends:
  • Male respondents reported more minutes, miles driven, and trips taken as compared to female respondents.
  • Drivers from the Northeast made more and longer trips, while drivers from the South spent more time driving.
• Other travel patterns, stabilized post 2021, have continued in 2024:
  • Drivers with a bachelor’s degree or higher took more trips and spent more time behind the wheel compared to other groups.
  • White non-Hispanic drivers recorded the greatest number of trips and miles driven, while Black non-Hispanic drivers spent more time behind the wheel than other groups.
  • Younger drivers continued using older vehicles (>14 years old), whereas older, retired drivers tended to use newer cars (<4 years old).
• Findings related to engine type:
  • In 2024, gas-powered vehicles made up the majority of driving trips (91.0%), while hybrids and electric vehicles (EVs) accounted for a smaller share (6.4% and 2.5% respectively).
  • Respondents driving EVs recorded the longest average trip times (16.0 minutes) and distances (32.9 miles), indicating that EVs were often used for longer journeys.