Drivers Getting Back on the Roads for Fourth Consecutive Month; Effects Yet to be Seen in Auto Glass Business, Many Report
September 25, 2009

Travel on U.S. roads and highways continued to increase for the month of July-for the fourth consecutive month-and was up by 2.3 percent for the same month in 2008, according to the latest report from the Federal Highway Administration (FHA), a division of the Department of Transportation. Miles driven during the month of July increased by 5.8 billion miles over July 2008, and were estimated at a total of 263.4 billion vehicle driven miles.

Cumulative travel for the month was almost identical to travel in July 2008; in July 2009, a total of 1709.2 billion miles had been driven since the beginning of the year, compared with 1709.8 billion miles that were driven for the same period of 2008.

When broken down by region, all U.S. regions reported increases in miles driven over last July, with the largest increase seen in the South Gulf region-up 2.9 percent (1,472 million) from last year.

Travel has risen continually since April, according to reports from FHA, which saw the first increase in a year over the previous year-of 0.6 percent. May 2009 saw a 0.1 percent increase over May 2008, and June 2009 saw a 1.9 percent increase. (CLICK HERE for related story.)

Despite this increase, respondents to a recent glassBYTEs.com™/AGRR magazine survey show few have seen the uptick in travel lead to an upswing in business. Only 6.3 percent of those surveyed advised they've seen a recent large increase in business; the majority of those surveyed, 55.7 percent, advised business is currently very slow. A few, 20.3 percent, reported a minor increase in business in recent months, and 17.7 percent reported that business is steady, but not any higher than usual.

Do you think business has increased any? Is the move into fall causing a slowdown? Please e-mail pstacey@glass.com.

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