http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126239000878412965.html
Lower gasoline prices didn't drive Americans to spend more time on the road in 2009, in part because people who lost their jobs stopped commuting.
Motor travel was expected to increase in 2009 after a jump in prices at the pump and the economic downturn led drivers to cut back a year earlier. In 2008, U.S. highway officials didn't record a year-over-year increase for the first time in 25 years.
But a tally of miles driven by U.S. passenger and commercial vehicles for the 12 months ending in October, the latest available, indicates that drivers still avoided their cars in 2009.
In fact, it is possible that final 2009 numbers from the Federal Highway Administration will show that Americans drove fewer miles than in 2008. And the 2009 total will clearly come in well below 2007's high-water mark.
Miles driven by U.S. passenger and commercial vehicles for the 12 months ended in October fell to 2.930 trillion from 2.941 trillion in the same period a year earlier. In 2007, the comparable figure was 3.037 trillion miles. Data still being collected on holiday-season driving likely won't reverse the trend, because vacation travelers who drive to destinations and then park use less gasoline than daily commuters, said Trilby Lundberg, author of a widely cited gasoline price and marketing survey.
Ms. Lundberg said the most important factor in motorist activity -- commuting to work -- has been "hit in the guts" by rising unemployment
