Cheap gas = more driving, review says
So much for a new era of conservation. New data shows that when gas got cheaper, we drove more, for good or ill.
Gasoline consumption has jumped in Florida as prices at the pump tumbled over the past two years, according to a Sun Sentinel review of state data, including county-level fuel consumption. The review did not look at diesel fuel consumption.
The low gas prices meant consumers had more money to spend, which led to more jobs, which led to more driving, transportation experts said.
“Low gas prices not only encourages more driving but helps juice the economy as well,” said Ken Kolosh, manager of the Statistics Department of the National Safety Council.
After several years of flat gasoline consumption after the recession, prices at the pump suddenly started falling in 2014. Between October and December 2014, pergallon prices quickly plummeted more than $1, to just above $2. Gas hasn’t cost over $3 a gallon since then.
Motorists started traveling more, especially in Florida. Total vehicle miles traveled in the state increased 5.5 percent between 2014 and 2015 compared with 3.5 percent nationally, according to the Federal Highway Administration.
But gasoline consumption in the tri-county area increased at a slightly lower rate between 2014 and 2015— 2.1 percent— than the rest of the state, where it rose 2.5 percent, according to a comparison of gallons sold per person that factored in state estimates of tourists who did not travel here by air.
Gallons of gas sold for every man, woman and child in South Florida increased from 381 to 389 gallons between 2014 and 2015. That followed changes of less than 1 percentage point since 2012. In the rest of the state, perperson consumption increased from 424 gallons to 434 gallons. That also followed little change since 2012.
Put another way, South Florida was 29.6 percent of Florida’s population but consumed 27.3
percent of gasoline sold in the state in 2015.
The increase outside the tri-county area tracked closely with what federal analysts expect. Typically, a 50 percent drop in gas prices spurs a 2 percent increase in consumption, said Michael Morris, a petroleum demand analyst for the U.S. Energy Information Administration. And every 1 percentage point drop in unemployment typically increases highway travel by two-thirds of a percentage point, Morris said.
The unemployment rate fell from 6.4 percent in 2014 to 5.5 percent in the tricounty region and statewide from 6.3 percent to 5.4 percent.
More people onthe roads contributed to more crashes and a dramatic jump in fatalities.
Traffic deaths increased 28 percent, from584 to 748, in the tri-county region between 2014 and 2015, and 15 percent, from 1,913 to 2,192, in the rest of the state, according to preliminary data collected by the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. Those numbers could change when the final statistics are released, a department spokeswoman cautioned. Nationally, fatalities were up by 8 percent, according to National Safety Council data.
In a July 1 news release on increased motor vehicle deaths nationwide, Dr. Mark Rosekind, director of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, acknowledged that falling gas prices and an improved economy have led to Americans driving more miles. “But that only explains part of the increase. Ninety-four percent of crashes can be tied back to a human choice or error.”
Among contributing factors, Kolosh said, was that more employment meant a return to the roads of the youngest, riskiest drivers who were sidelined during the recession.
And then there was the steady increase in use of handheld electronic devices by drivers, he said. A2014 national report found the percentage of drivers “visibly manipulating handheld devices” increased each year between 2009 to 2014, including from 1.7 percent in 2013 to 2.2 percent in 2014. Rates were highest, just under 6 percent, among drivers ages 16 to 24.
So why do tri-county residents consume less gasoline than people who live in the rest of the state?
Sources contacted for this report could not cite any study comparing gasoline consumption among specific regions.
Generally, per-person gasoline consumption tends to be lower in urban areas than suburban areas, andlower insuburban areas than rural areas, the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s Morris said.
Since the recession, demographers have noticed that more young adults are moving to urban areas because they don’t want to drive as much, Morris said.
Paul Calvaresi, transportation planner with the Broward Metropolitan Planning Organization, said it’s possible that tri-county residents use less gas because they don’t have to travel as many miles. “It could be our system is set up more efficiently” with more right-turn lanes, fewer red lights and faster routes, he said. Or “maybe our public transportation system is used more than in other parts of the state,” requiring us to collectively use less gas, he said.
Greg Stuart, executive director of the Broward MPO, said the places we need to drive to tend to be closer to our homes in the tri-county region— and that’s largely a result of limitations on sprawl imposed by the ocean to the east and the Everglades to thewest.
“We have short distances to travel for services, such as shopping, education, and health care,” Stuart said. “We are more urban and dense than the rest of the state. The more infill we build, the less travel distance will be required.”