Auto-crazed Americans drive less these days as a result of record-high gasoline prices in the past two years, it was reported Thursday.

It was the first time that Americans cut miles driven since 1980, said the Los Angeles Times.

"Two years of record-high gasoline prices have forced auto- crazed Americans to do something they haven't done in more than two decades: drive less," said the report.

To the surprise of many economists, U.S. motorists changed their ways enough to cut the nation's per-driver mileage by 0.4 percent in 2005, ending a string of increases dating back to 1980, the paper quoted government data as saying.

Other reports over the last year on mass transit ridership, total miles driven nationwide, gasoline demand, vehicle sales and retail and restaurant spending reinforce the notion that U.S. drivers made significant - and in some cases, lasting - adjustments to offset steadily rising gasoline prices, said the paper.

"It's a small but important shift for a nation that many believed was impervious to rising gas prices because drivers were unable or unwilling to rein in their gas-guzzling ways," said the paper.

Lofty energy costs have generated such concern that President George W. Bush devoted a significant chunk of his last two State of the Union speeches to addressing the nation's oil addiction.

Expensive gasoline was transforming "America's love affair with the automobile," said a report entitled "Gasoline and the American People" by the Cambridge Energy Research Associates, a Boston-area consulting company.

The report highlighted the decline in per-driver mileage and a cooling appetite for the largest sport utility vehicles, among other things.

Even though pump prices have dropped substantially from their highs in 2006, "there's a greater sense of insecurity, and people don't want to be caught emptying their wallet at the gasoline pump, " said Yergin, author of "The Prize," a Pulitzer-winning history of the oil industry.

Source: Xinhua