American Driving Survey, 2014 – 2017
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Summary
This research brief from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety addresses the critical need for accurate data on driving exposure to quantify traffic risks. While crash statistics provide injury and fatality counts, understanding risk requires knowing the volume of driving activity, such as miles traveled. To fill this gap, the Foundation launched the American Driving Survey (ADS) in 2013. This report summarizes findings from the 2014–2017 period, comparing driving patterns against the previous 2014–2015 baseline to identify trends in exposure across various demographic groups. The study utilized a standard random-digit-dial telephone survey method, collecting data via landline and cellular phones. Respondents provided demographic information and detailed reports of all driving trips taken on the day prior to the interview, including trip duration, distance, vehicle type, and passenger count. Data were weighted to ensure the statistics represented national estimates for all drivers. The analysis focused on four primary metrics: the proportion of the population driving, daily driving trips, time spent driving, and miles driven. The results indicate a slight but consistent increase in all driving metrics from 2014–2015 to 2016–2017. Nationally, drivers averaged 2.22 daily trips, 51 minutes of driving time, and 31.5 miles driven per day, up from 2.16 trips, 48 minutes, and 29.9 miles in the earlier period. Consequently, the total annual driving exposure rose significantly: the number of drivers increased by 3.6 million to 225.8 million, total annual trips reached 183 billion, total driving hours reached 70 billion, and total miles driven reached 2.6 trillion. Demographically, the proportion of the population driving remained stable at approximately 87%, though specific groups showed statistically significant changes. Hispanic respondents and those over age 75 showed increased driving participation or time, while respondents with only a high school education or GED and those in the Midwest showed decreases. Middle-aged drivers, men, and non-Hispanic whites generally drove more miles and spent more time driving than other groups. The significance of these findings lies in the confirmation that total driving exposure in the United States is increasing, driven by both population growth and slightly higher per-driver activity. This data provides essential baseline metrics for traffic safety research, allowing for more accurate risk calculations. The authors note that while aggregate trends are clear, subgroup comparisons should be interpreted with caution due to limited statistical significance in many demographic shifts. The report underscores the continued relevance of the ADS in monitoring national driving patterns to inform safety interventions.
Key finding
In 2016–2017 U.S. drivers averaged 51 minutes, 31.5 miles, and 2.2 trips per day, with nationwide totals of 183 billion trips and 2.6 trillion miles—slight increases over 2014–2015 across all driving-exposure metrics.
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 (6 acquisition events logged).
| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | aaa_foundation | — | — | 2 | 2026-05-23 |
| archive | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-23 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
| clean | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-01 |
| chunk | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-01 |
| embed | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-02 |
| enrich | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-23 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-23 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 19 | 2026-06-11 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.
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- Empirical Findings: observational prevalence
- Methodological Resource: dataset resource