02/23/2026

AAA Releases 2024 American Driving Survey

Source: Body Shop Business

The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety has released its 2024 American Driving Survey, which quantifies daily driving in 2024 and compares results to 2023 and 2022. Similar to 2023, the brief analyzes the age of vehicles driven and explores differences by population groups. This year, new analyses of vehicle engine type are included. Vehicle age and engine type are important components of both crash risk and environmental impact, as newer vehicles are equipped with more advanced safety features, and alternative engines can reduce emissions.

Key findings included:

• 94.2% of U.S. residents ages 16 and older drove at least occasionally in 2023, statistically unchanged from 2023 and 2022.
• In 2024, drivers made an average of 2.44 driving trips per day, spent 60.4 minutes driving and traveled 31.1 miles daily, with no statistically significant differences from 2023.
• Projecting these results to the national population, drivers collectively made 232 billion trips, spent 96 billion hours driving and drove 2.95 trillion miles in 2024.

Some of the travel patterns reported by population groups were consistent with both previous years’ trends:

• Male respondents reported more minutes, miles driven and trips taken as compared to female respondents.
• Drivers from the Northeast made more and longer trips, while drivers from the South spent more time driving.

Other travel patterns, stabilized post-2021, have continued in 2024:

• Drivers with a bachelor’s degree or higher took more trips and spent more time behind the wheel compared to other groups.
• White non-Hispanic drivers recorded the greatest number of trips and miles driven, while Black non-Hispanic drivers spent more time behind the wheel than other groups.
• Younger drivers continued using older vehicles (greater than 14 years old), whereas older, retired drivers tended to use newer cars ( less than four years old).

Findings related to engine type included:

• In 2024, gas-powered vehicles made up the majority of driving trips (91.0%), while hybrids and electric vehicles (EVs) accounted for a smaller share (6.4% and 2.5% respectively).
• Respondents driving EVs recorded the longest average trip times (16.0 minutes) and distances (32.9 miles), indicating that EVs were often used for longer journeys.

For more information on the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, visit aaafoundation.org.