AAA Ignores Labor Day Travel

This year, the auto club decided not to forecast how many drivers will hit the road this coming holiday weekend.

September 02, 2016

WASHINGTON – It appears that Labor Day isn’t a very well-traveled holiday weekend, at least according to AAA, which is no longer predicting the number of motorists hitting the nation’s roadways. While the national office stopped forecasting the September holiday last year, the Automobile Club of Southern California continued the tradition in 2015. But no one is paying attention to travel over the coming weekend this year, the San Diego Tribune reports.

“In 2016, AAA released holiday travel forecasts for Memorial Day and Independence Day, and will release a third forecast for the Thanksgiving holiday. Other holidays, including Labor Day, are evaluated annually to determine national, regional and local media interest in the travel data,” said Julie Hall, AAA spokeswoman for the national office. “In an effort to provide a wide variety of consumer travel information, AAA regularly releases data on key travel topics outside of these busy holiday travel periods, including insights on top travel destinations, travel to national parks, river cruising, family travel trends and more.”

That shift in priorities has left out Labor Day weekend, which traditionally has been the least-traveled holiday, according to Marie Montgomery Nordhues of the Automobile Club of Southern California. Rather, AAA has focused on teen driver safety, auto technology and distracted driving.

So while there’s no official numbers for predicting how many Americans will hit the road for one last gasp of summer, convenience stores and gasoline stations will be ready to serve whoever stops by to fill up with food or fuel.

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