How many miles should you drive in a year?

Nothing says freedom, ease, and moveableness like a car. Wait, is moveableness a word? Let's try mobility. Unless you live in a city, life is no picnic without a car, whether it's the commute to work, a road trip, or running errands. If we're driving that much, we must be racking up the mileage without giving it a second thought. Let's get to the bottom of this and see if we're driving your car's value into the ground.

Mile marker

Driving habits vary from person to person and across diverse places. That said, we have a starting line. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) tells us that the average American drives around 13,500 miles a year, or about 260 miles a week. If that sounds like you, whoopee, you're not grinding your car's gears.

Interstate mileage

But here's the twist. The average car mileage per year changes depending on which state you’re in. If you live in Wyoming, you're crushing the national average at 25,000 miles yearly. Our runner-ups are Mississippi, Alabama, New Mexico, and Missouri, at roughly 19,000 miles for every trip around the sun. As for last place, D.C. takes the cake with 6,500 miles, and just ahead of them are New York, Washington, and Rhode Island, clocking in at 9,500 miles.

Age is a number

Men between the ages of 34 and 54 drive the most, logging almost 19,000 miles behind the wheel, while women over the age of 65 dole out just about 5,000 miles. Then, we have a neck-and-neck race between teens and seniors at 7,600 miles a year.

Distance learning

After breaking down these stats, one thing is clear—how we get from point A to point B is still blurry, and the distance between those points is also cloudy. But what we can put to bed is that the fewer miles you put on your car, the more it'll hold its value...but that has a few smudges, too.

The willy-nilly of it is, if your car has gobbled more miles than it's worth, it might be time to sell it to Peddle. You can get a quick and easy offer in a few simple steps.