the art of honest theft

Hannah Fairfieldtwitter: @hfairfield

The Art of Honest TheftEvolution of a connected scatterplot

20

40

60

80

$100 a barrel Average price

40

60

80

100 million barrels a day

World

U.S.

’64 ’73 ’81 ’90 ’00 ’07 ’64 ’73 ’81 ’90 ’00 ’07

Range of prices

PRICE OF OIL OIL CONSUMPTION

2007†

2004

2000

2001 2002

2003

1996

1990

1986

1982

1974

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1980

19761978

1971 1972196919671964

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1981

World Oil Consumption �

Price

Of

Oil*

�

$30

$20

$40

$50

$60

$70

$80

$90

$100 a barrel In today’s dollars

30 million barrels a day 40 50 60 70 80

1980 HIGH

Late 1960s, early 1970s Oil prices are steady and energy supplies are plentiful. World oil consumption doubles from 1964 to 1973.

1973 The Arab oil embargo causes price increases and short-term shortages. Lines form at gas stations, and consumption stalls for two years.

1979 and 1980 The Iranian revolution and the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war reduce produc-tion. Prices soar.

1982 Recessions in industrialized countries across the world damp demand. Smaller cars also conserve oil, and prices fall.

Early 2000s Record demand in Asia and the United States and instability in Iraq, Venezuela and Nigeria fuel a run-up in prices.

2007 Low inventories, a weak dollar and bullish trading push oil near $100 a barrel.

This chart tracks the relationship between oil prices and oil consumption since 1964. Global oil consumption is shown on the horizontal axis and oil prices are shown on the vertical axis. So, when consumption is increasing and prices are flat, the line moves straight right. And when prices are rising and demand stops growing, the line moves straight up.

* Average annual price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil, adjusted for inflation using the Consumer Price Index. Posted prices (not spot prices) are shown before 1983.

AMANDA COX/THE NEW YORK TIMES; PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESSSources: Energy Information Administration; Federal Reserve; Bureau of Labor Statistics; Rocky Mountain Institute

† Consumption forecast as of Nov. 6

Oil’s Roller Coaster Ride

1990 Iraq invades Kuwait and prices briefly jump.

WHAT’S GOINGON HERE? In the early 1980s, oil consumption fell. This is why the chart seems to turn around.

2001 Sept. 11 attacks create recession fears. Prices drop, but soon recover.

1986 Saudi Arabia opens its produc-tion taps and prices collapse.

1998 Faltering Asian economies slow demand; prices fall.

YESTERDAY’SPRICE

AVERAGEPRICE IN 2007

19561957

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1961 1962

19631964

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19671968

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1980 1981

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1994 1995

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Feb. 2010

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$2.00

$2.50

$2.00

$2.50

$1.50

$3.00

7,000 mi. 8,000 mi. 9,000 mi. 10,000

7,000 mi.6,000 mi.5,000 mi. 8,000 mi. 9,000 mi.

Sources: Energy Information Administration; Federal Highway Administration; Brookings Institution THE NEW YORK TIMES

Price ofa gallonof gasoline

Driving Shifts Into Reverse

METRICSHANNAH FAIRFIELD

CONOMISTS have long studied the relationship between driving habits and gasoline prices. Low gas prices

can bring periods of profligate driving, and a quick jump in prices can cause many vehicles to languish in garages.

Until recently, Americans have driven more each year than the previous one, with a few brief exceptions. In 1956, Americans of driving age drove about 4,000 miles a year, on average. Fifty years later, that figure had climbed above 10,000.

But the latest recession has caused some big changes. High unemployment meant that fewer people were driving to work, and a slump in consumer spending

meant that less freight needed to be moved around the country. As gas prices soared in 2005, the number of miles driven — including commercial and personal — began to fall, and continued to drop after 2008 even as gasoline became cheaper.

“People were surprised by the very rapid rise in gas prices, and they changed their driving behavior,” said Kenneth A. Small, a transportation economist at the University of California, Irvine. “But my suspicion is that it is temporary. As soon as unemployment gets back to pre-recession levels, we will see Americans doing a lot more driving again.”

E

Miles driven per capita each year

Cheap gas,longer commutes

Cheap gas,longer commutes

The Araboil embargoThe Arab

oil embargo

Energy crisisEnergy crisis

Record low pricesRecord low prices

The swing backwardThe swing backward

Annual average

Cheap gas, longer commutes

1956-72

Americans spent more time in their cars as highways networks expanded and more workers commuted from new, far-flung suburbs. The number of commuters rose as more women joined the work force.

CHANGE IN GAS PRICES

–52¢


–52¢

CHANGE IN MILES DRIVEN PER YEAR

+2,270


+2,270

Record low prices

1986-98

Gasoline remained cheap for more than a decade, and the average number of miles Americans drove annually jumped by more than 2,000. Economists observed that consumers became less sensitive to small gas-price changes as household incomes rose.


–39¢


–39¢


+2,057


+2,057

The swing backward

2005-10

The growth in driving faltered as gas prices started to climb. But much of the sharp reduction in driving was caused by the long recession and its high unemploy-ment rate. A small but growing number of thrifty and carbon-conscious commuters switched to bicycles and public transportation.


+21¢


+21¢


–427


–427

Energy crisis

1978-81

Gas prices jumped as the Iranian revolution and the Iran-Iraq war caused a rift in the global oil supply. United States energy policy turned to conservation, and Congress imposed the first fuel-efficiency standards for cars.


+106¢


+106¢


–156


–156

The Arab oil embargo

1973-74

In 1973, many Arab oil-producing countries declared an oil embargo against the United States because of its support of Israel in the Middle East. The supply disruption caused oil prices to rise sharply, and gas consumption declined.


+43¢


+43¢


–210


–210

Annual average for regular grade, adjusted for inflation

The average number of miles that Americans

drive annually begins to fall, so the chart appears

to turn around.

4,000 6,000 8,000 10,000

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Auto fatalities per 100,000 people

Vehicle miles driven per capita

Auto fatalities per 100,000

people

VISUALS Hannah Fairfield

1950

19511953

1954

1956

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19781980

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20012004

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1968

In 1965, Ralph Nader publishes a best seller

about auto companies’ resisting safety features. In response, the government creates the first agency devoted to highway safety. Auto fatalities hit a plateau.

“Unsafe at Any Speed”

American cars get bigger, faster and — with more V-8 engines

in midsize cars — more deadly. The Interstate highway system grows, and speeds rise with it.

Muscle Cars Energy Crises

After the 1973 Arab oil embargo, President Richard M. Nixon sets a 55 m.p.h.

speed limit as national energy policy. A few years later, the Iranian revolution and the Iran-Iraq war curtail fuel supplies. People drive less (and more slowly), and fatalities fall.

Unstable Economy, Stable Vehicles

Air Bags and S.U.V.’s

By the 1990s, computerized auto technology like antilock brakes is reducing accidents,

and air bags make them less deadly. But as Americans fall in love with high-riding S.U.V.'s, which tend to flip over and to endanger smaller vehicles, fatality rates tick upward, then reach a plateau.

Analysts note two important factors for the recent drop: safer vehicles and

unemployment. Economic downturns mean fewer people on the road, especially high-risk 16-to-24-year-old drivers. At the same time, most new vehicles have stability controls and better crash test ratings. Redesigned S.U.V.’s are less deadly in crashes.

Early estimates from 2012

show increases in driving and

fatalities.

Seat Belts and Sobriety

In 1984, New York becomes the first state to require drivers to wear seat belts.

Child car seats, once a novelty, become the norm: by 1985, all states require them. Many states tighten laws against drunken driving, and by 1988 all states have set the minimum drinking age at 21.

THE NEW YORK TIMESSources: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; Federal Highway Administration

Driving Safety, in Fits and StartsMERICANS drive a staggering number of miles — close to three trillion every year, according to the

government. (That is half a light-year, or 120 million trips around the world.) And although traffic accidents remain a major public safety problem, the biggest killer of people ages 5 to 34, vehicle travel is far safer than it was a few decades ago. Several factors appear to account for the sharp decline in fatalities. Technology (like anti-lock brakes and air bags) and road behavior (like wearing seat belts and driving sober) have both improved greatly since 1950. Americans almost always drive more each year than the previous one — at least until recently, when the recession curtailed road habits. And the auto fatality rate has been decreasing since the 1960s, when cars with massive engines carried their unbuckled passengers on primarily two-lane roads.

The safety data is usually charted as deaths per miles traveled. But what happens when the metrics are teased apart, and familiar data is charted in an unfamiliar way? Plotting the two most important variables against each other — miles traveled versus deaths per 100,000 population — yields a pattern that looks like a plateau followed by a steep drop. It evokes the theory of punctuated equilibrium, proposed by the paleontologists Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge, which suggests that instead of continuous gradual evolution, change occurs abruptly after periods of virtual standstill. “You see fatalities drop after a break-through in new technologies or behaviors, and then plateau until the next one,” said David L. Strickland, administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. “It takes time for new safety technologies to work their way into the whole fleet of cars on the road.”

A

What’s next?

Thank you

Hannah Fairfieldtwitter: @hfairfield

the art of honest theft

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