text: Almost every single citizen in the United States of America owns or drives a car every single day. This has left researchers pondering a fundamental question: Has America passed the peak of driving? The United States is known for its broad expanses and suburban ideals, and has long been known for one of the world's prime car cultures. It is indeed the birthplace of Model T; the home of Detroit; the place where Wilson Pickett immortalized "Mustang Sally." Lately America's love addiction with motor vehicles seems to be settling down. As of April 2013, the number of miles driven per person was nearly 8 percent below the peak and equal to where the country was in January 1995. Most of the explanation to this certainly comes from recession, because broke Americans could not afford new cars, and the unemployed weren't going to work anyway. "What most intrigues me is that rates of car ownership per household and per person started to come down two to three years before the downturn," said Michael Sivak, who studies the trend and who is a research professor at the University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute. "I think that means something more fundamental is going on," he also said. All of these changes, people who stopped car commuting as a result of the recession need to find reasons NOT to resume the habit of driving and spending stupid amounts of money on gasoline. The state of New York has a new bike-sharing programs and its skyrocketing bridge and tunnel tolls refelct those new priorities, as do a proliferation of car-sharing programs across the nation. A study last year found that driving by young people decreased 23 percent between 2001 and 2009.