Driving update for March 2017: Snow Bear

Last week, I wrote the first driving update for March 2017 as Pearl rolled her odometer 39,000 miles.  This week, Snow Bear turned over her first 1,000 miles on November 22, 2017 as she turned over 2,000 miles yesterday, March 25, 2018.   That means it's time to write a second driving update for the month.

From November 22, 2017 to March 25, 2018 was 123 days, so Snow Bear averaged 8.13 miles per day and 247.97 miles per standard month.  That's a lot less than the 26.31 miles per day and 863.38 miles per standard month my wife and I drove her during October.  It's also a bit more than the 7.19 miles per day or 219.42 miles per standard month my wife drove Dez during November 2016 to March 2017, the comparable period last year.

Three factors contributed to the slight mileage increase.  First, I drove Snow Bear for a couple of weeks as my car was snowed in and then briefly disabled, pushing the new car's miles up and mine down.  Second, Snow Bear was disabled for more than two weeks as she had to have two tires and a rim replaced after hitting a pothole, taking the miles I drove off.  Finally, my wife drove to visit our daughter in Chicago.  Just under half of the trip will show up on the next report, so the increase was smaller than it could have been.  Just the same, I don't regret it.  As I've written before, family is a priority.

During the same time, I drove Pearl about 2,000 miles.  From November 15, 2017 to January 25, 2018, she traveled an average of 14.08 miles per day and 429.58 miles per standard month.  Between January 25 and March 19, the comparable averages were 18.87 miles per day and 575.5 miles per standard month.  The average was then 16.48 miles per day and 502.54 miles per standard month.  Added to Snow Bear's miles and the result are 24.61 miles per day and 750.51 miles per standard month combined between the two cars.  Those are much less than the estimated 46.31 miles per day and 1473.38 miles per month we drove our cars during October and November of last year.  They're also less than the 26.26 miles per day and 800.90 miles per month we drove our cars during November 2016 to March 2017.  In the really important statistic, how much both cars travel, we are doing better.

Our efforts won't show up on the next graph from Doug Short, which only records total vehicle miles driven in the U.S. up to the end of last year.  Still, it does show that the rate of increase is still slow.

"Travel on all roads and streets changed by 0.7% (1.8 billion vehicle miles) for December 2017 as compared with December 2016. Travel for the month is estimated to be 261.8 billion vehicle miles." The 12-month moving average was up 0.06% month-over-month and 1.2% year-over-year. If we factor in population growth, the 12-month MA of the civilian population-adjusted data (age 16-and-over) is unchanged at 0.00% month-over-month and up only 0.7% year-over-year.

All the growth is from increased population, not from increased driving per person.  That's relatively good news.

I expect April to be a month without a driving update.  The next one, for Pearl, should come in May.  Let's see if I'm right.