I fear it's reflecting America's long slow decline since 1980.

Why would less autos be a good thing?

Autos transport people faster and cheaper than the alternatives. (well not cheaper than walking or bikes unless you vlaue your time.)

Thanks
JK

The cash for clunkers program (which stimulated foreign car manufacturers more than any) likely accounts for the high number of cars being scrapped.

My wife and I sold our 2nd car last spring. It was fully paid off and cheap to run, but why keep the thing when we only used it once a month?

I currently commute to work by bicycle, which is quicker and cheaper than driving. It's good excercise, and it gets my blood flowing so I can be alert at work sans coffee.

jimkarlok: In the suburbs it might be faster to commute by car, but from Sellwood to downtown it takes me 25 minutes to commute door-to-door, by car it takes me between 20 and 30 minutes (depending on traffic on 99e and how long it takes me to find a spot in the lot).

Ron Swaren: You're right, cash for clunkers is the most likely cause. People who scrapped their clunkers did have to buy new cars, however some percentage of those people (probably a significant percentage) would have sold their cars to another party rather than having them scrapped.

Doug,

Cash for Clunkers required the clunker to be scrapped. Cash for clunkers is effectively a wash in terms of the difference between new cars purchased and those scrapped.

My guess is that people realized that the old cars they were hanging onto weren't neccessary, and that they could save money by getting rid of them.

Looks like we're going Back To The Past, where we walked to get someplace instead of for exercise.

"Why would less autos be a good thing?"

Because cars are wasteful. Especially in say - 5 car households.

We have one car for three adults and one school aged child. The car sits in the driveway more than 2/3 of the days, and on days when it is used it is usually for out-of-town trips.

The days of the one car per person in the household are probably over.

The Cash for Clunkers program resulted in about 685,000 cars being scrapped.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_Allowance_Rebate_System

So, A.) It would have represented only about 1/8 of the 4 million car difference in cars scrapped vs. cars purchased, if not for B.) Most of the Clunkers were replaced with new auto purchases.

In other words, it had little to no impact at all on the decline. More likely is that there's been an artifically high number of autos and tough economic times forced people to reduce. This trend has been noticed in a number of ways. A recent NY Times article outlined how Americans seem to be buying fewer things, and spending what discretionary income they have on experiences.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/business/economy/03experience.html?scp=1&sq=canoe&st=cse

Why would less autos be a good thing?

Huh? Where in the original post did Chris even hint that this statistic was a good thing? He was asking about possible causes.

I'm gonna go with "economy-driven one-time event" until we see similar patterns replicated. When you're trying to cut expenses, it makes sense to sell the second or third car, getting rid of the monthly payments and insurance and stuff. There may be a fair number of people getting by as a one-car household until they can afford a second one.

I'm curious--14 million cars were scrapped; and about 685k were scapped as part of CFC?

How do the rest of the cars wind up in the scrapyard--i.e. what percentage are totalled in wrecks, what percentage are not totalled, but cost too much to fix, what percentage are driveable but parted out, etc.

I wonder if the Cash for Clunkers program inspired people to scrap their cars. Maybe they considered it, found out their car didn't qualify, and then decided to scrap it anyway? Marketing campaigns like this can have a wide indirect effect.

I suggest it may be related to THIS!

Do we know what the size of the U.S. public transportation service vehicle fleet did for the same period?

Doug and Douglas K (if you're not the same "Doug").

You fed the troll. That is an unwise thing to do. Starvation is the only cure for supercilious windbaggery.

Jason Barbour Says: Do we know what the size of the U.S. public transportation service vehicle fleet did for the same period?

There's an enormous delay in response time for transport vehicle construction so any uptick would still be in front of us, I believe. Unless, of course, you were wondering if we'd also seen a fall-off in bus purchases because of budget shortfalls.