How many miles do we drive? Here is an excerpt from Robert Sullivan's "A Slow-Road Movement?" in the Sunday magazine section of the New York Times on June 25, 2006:
According to the Automobile Association of America, in 1956, Americans drove 628 million miles; in 2002, 2.8 billion. The even bigger story is trucks. In 1997, according to the Department of Transportation, the Interstate System handled more than 1 trillion ton-miles of stuff, a feat executed by 21 million truckers driving approximately 412 billion miles.
(a) There were at least 100 million drivers in the United States in 2002. How many miles per driver per year is 2.8 billion miles? Does this seem plausible?
(b) According to the report, on average how many miles per year do truckers drive? Does this seem plausible?
(c) Check the most recent Statistical Abstract of the United States at www .census.gov and determine how many miles per year Americans actually drive.