July Driving Falls to 97% of Pre-Pandemic Levels

Americans drove 97 percent as many miles in July 2022 as they had in July 2019, the year before the pandemic, according to data released yesterday by the Federal Highway Administration. This is only the fourth month out of the last fourteen in which driving was less than 100 percent of pre-pandemic levels.

See this post for sources of data for Amtrak, air travel, and transit.

The dip in driving in April was explainable by the spike in fuel prices caused by the war in Ukraine. Prices actually peaked in mid-June and have declined almost every day since, so it isn’t clear why driving declined a bit in July. Continue reading