American Driving Survey, 2015 – 2016

AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety · 2018 · AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety

archive: archived pipeline: cataloged verified

Get this paper ↗ (full text — opens at the source; we link to it, we don't host it)

Summary

This research brief presents findings from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety’s 2015–2016 American Driving Survey, which quantifies the daily driving patterns of the U.S. general public. The study aims to provide comprehensive estimates of driving exposure, including the number of trips, time spent driving, and miles driven, while analyzing changes relative to the previous year. The data serves to characterize the driving behavior of the American population across various demographic and geographic subgroups. The methodology involved telephone interviews conducted via landline and cellular phones using random-digit-dial sampling. Data were collected daily between January 1, 2015, and December 31, 2016, with a 2016 sample comprising 3,797 households and 3,161 drivers. Respondents reported driving activities for a 24-hour period, with oversampling applied to teenage drivers, those aged 75 and older, and frequent drivers to ensure adequate representation. Data were weighted to align with U.S. Census Bureau demographics regarding age, race, education, and region. National estimates were derived by multiplying driver-level means by the total estimated number of U.S. drivers. In 2016, the average driver made 2.24 trips per day, spent 50.6 minutes driving, and traveled 31.5 miles. Projected nationally, U.S. drivers completed 186 billion trips, spent 70 billion hours driving, and covered 2.62 trillion miles. Compared to 2015, the driving population increased by 3.3 million to 227.7 million, and the proportion of residents aged 16+ who drove rose to 88.3%. Significant year-over-year increases in driving prevalence were observed among drivers aged 75 and older, Hispanics, and those with less than a high school education. Demographically, drivers aged 25–49 drove the most miles and spent the most time behind the wheel, while men drove approximately eight more miles per day than women. Drivers in the West reported a statistically significant increase in miles driven, surpassing other regions. The study concludes that total driving exposure in the United States increased significantly in 2016 due to both a larger driving population and higher individual driving rates. However, the authors caution that many subgroup comparisons and changes in time or miles driven were not statistically significant due to sample size limitations and data variability. The findings provide critical baseline data for traffic safety research, highlighting specific demographic groups with increased driving exposure, such as older adults and lower-income populations, which may inform targeted safety interventions.

Key finding

In 2016, U.S. drivers averaged 2.2 trips, 50.6 minutes, and 31.5 miles per day, projecting to an estimated 186 billion trips, 70 billion hours, and 2.62 trillion miles nationwide, with significant year-over-year increases in the driving population and total trip counts.

Methodology

survey

Provenance

The full processing record for this entry. Every stage of this paper's journey through the pipeline is logged — what ran, with which tool and model, how many attempts it took, and when it last completed. Discovered via bulk_ingest_aaa_foundation on 2026-05-23 (5 acquisition events logged).

Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.

Topics

Ranked by relevance to this paper. Hover a topic for its definition.

• exposure measurement
• sex gender
• older drivers

Information type

What kind of knowledge this paper contributes, grouped by family — independent of topic (what it is about) and method (how it was studied).

• Empirical Findings: observational prevalence
• Methodological Resource: dataset resource