Americans Make More Than 14,000 Roundtrips to the Sun a Year

In 1950, U.S. drivers covered some 588 billion kilometers (365 billion miles) in 40 million cars, or almost 14,600 kilometers per car. By 2003, the average distance driven per year had grown to more than 19,000 kilometers. Multiplied by the far-larger number of vehicles now on U.S. roads, the total distance traveled had grown more than seven-fold, to 4,281 billion kilometers. That's equivalent to 14,308 roundtrips from Earth to the sun.

Driving all these vehicles required 8.3 million barrels of fuel per day in 2002, up from 5.1 million barrels in 1970. Passenger-vehicle fuel consumption now surpasses total U.S. domestic oil production and is a major driver of rising imports.

Vital Signs
Purchase a print version or electronic PDF of Vital Signs 2005.

References
"Fossil Fuel Use Surges," in Vital Signs 2005, pp. 30-31
"Vehicle Production Sets New Record," in Vital Signs 2005, pp. 56-57

Links
U.S. Federal Highway Administration, http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/