NEW YORK, Feb 22 — US road travel rose by four per cent in the nation's warmest December on record, government data showed yesterday, and capped a record-setting driving renaissance amid cheap gasoline prices and lower unemployment.

Defying expectations that rapid year-on-year increases in driving would abate as motorists got used to low pump prices, drivers logged 264.2 billion miles on US roads and highways in December, the most ever for the month, according to the US Department of Transportation.

For the full year, US drivers travelled 3.15 trillion miles, 3.9 per cent more than the previous record set in 2007. The revival helped propel US gasoline demand to a four-week rolling average of 9.3 million barrels per day, the second-highest tally for December on record and the equivalent to about a tenth of global oil use.

Some analysts cautioned that the strong December figures might have resulted more from temporary weather conditions than a more sustainable increase in consumption.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said this past December was the warmest on record for the contiguous United States, leading to below-normal snowfall for the dense US Northeast.

Several upstate New York communities, for example, had their least snowy December on record, according to NOAA.

New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland and New Hampshire account for about 15 per cent of US gasoline consumption, according to the latest figures from the US Energy Information Administration.

“There's no doubt that the ability to drive without putting chains on your tires boosted driving in December, especially with gas prices being so low,” Price Futures Group analyst Phil Flynn said on Monday.

In the United States, where heating oil demand is concentrated in the Northeast, the number of degrees a day's average temperature was below 65 degrees Fahrenheit (18 degrees Celsius) was 30 per cent below normal in December.

Last year's rebound came during an ongoing period of low gasoline prices and strong job growth in the US economy. Miles driven in December 2013 were up 1.1 per cent from a year earlier, when gasoline prices seemed stuck at more than US$3 (RM12.57) a gallon.

The average US pump price for gasoline was US$1.71 a gallon yesterday, compared with US$2.29 a year ago, according to motorists' advocacy group AAA. — Reuters