RENEE MONTAGNE, host: Our business starts with the road less traveled.</s>RENEE MONTAGNE, host: Higher gas prices make motorists grumble but they don't change their driving habits. That is until recently. A new study finds that for the first time in a quarter century, Americans actually drove fewer miles last year. NPR's Chris Arnold reports.</s>CHRIS ARNOLD: You wouldn't know it at rush hour in Boston, where gridlock and hand gestures are still daily events, but Americans drove a bit less last year, about one percent less.</s>Mr. DANIEL YERGIN (Chairman, Cambridge Energy Research Associates): And the growth in gasoline demand was much less.</s>CHRIS ARNOLD: Daniel Yergin is one of the most prominent energy researchers in the world. He's chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, which issued the report. Back a few years ago, gas was pretty cheap and Yergin says Americans' love affair with the automobile was turning into a passion for enormous SUVs.</s>CHRIS ARNOLD: Even when gas prices started rising, people kept buying them for a while.</s>Mr. DANIEL YERGIN (Chairman, Cambridge Energy Research Associates): Yeah. There was always that question, at what point do prices start to matter? And it looked like it maybe was going to be $2, but we've discovered that it's really in the $2.50 to 3 range that it really does start to affect people's behaviors, their thinking, and the choices they make.</s>CHRIS ARNOLD: Yergin says, in the last two years, it seems like American consumers turned a corner.</s>Mr. DANIEL YERGIN (Chairman, Cambridge Energy Research Associates): One of the most striking things to me, is the decline over two years, of about 600,000 in the sales of large SUVs, and the switchover to smaller more efficient SUVs.</s>CHRIS ARNOLD: Not good news for Detroit, since many of those smaller SUVs are built by foreign automakers.</s>CHRIS ARNOLD: Chris Arnold, NPR News, Boston.
Higher gas prices are having an effect on public habits. A new study finds that Americans drove less in 2005. It's the first time in 25 years they've logged — on average — fewer miles on the road.