Record-High Pain at the Pump Leads More Motorists to Park it

June 16, 2008 — -- For drivers across the country, the tipping point is past: A record number of Americans say soaring gasoline prices are causing them serious financial hardship, and 55 percent have cut back on their driving as a result, up sharply in the past month.

Seventy-seven percent in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll call gas prices a financial hardship, and 51 percent say it's a "serious" hardship – up respectively by 14 and 17 points from a month ago to their highest in polls dating to 2000.

The fallout: Consolidating trips.

A month ago 42 percent of Americans said they'd cut back on their driving to deal with higher gas prices; today it's 55 percent, another dramatic increase. That may threaten businesses that rely on motorists for their turnover, from shopping malls to drive-thrus to drive-to vacation destinations.

Other figures back the trend: Last week the Department of Energy reported a drop in gasoline consumption of 1.3 percent from a year ago. Miles-driven was down early this spring for the first time since 1979. Mass transit ridership is up, as are sales of more fuel-efficient cars. And consumer confidence, inversely linked to gas prices when they're on the rise, hit a record low last month in the 22-year-old ABC News Consumer Comfort Index.

While the financial hardship falls disproportionately on less well-off Americans, drivers across the board are cutting back.

Still there are some differences in extent: Women, in particular, are changing their driving habits; 61 percent report driving less, compared with 48 percent of men. That reflects both the higher likelihood of men to be employed outside the home, and therefore to commute, as well as their higher average incomes. Less well-off adults are more apt to be driving less. So are Easterners and Southerners.

The reduction in driving is especially striking because this poll poses the question in an open-ended format -- people who report hardship because of gasoline prices are asked what they're doing to deal with it -- rather than more leading questions asking people if they're driving less because of high gas prices.