Highway travel rises in July

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Americans drove more for the second month in a row in July, as the economy showed some signs of rebounding, the U.S. Transportation Department said Wednesday.

U.S. highway travel was up 2.3 percent in July compared with a year ago, rising 5.8 billion miles to 263.4 billion miles.

This is the third increase in highway travel in four months, after more than a year of declines due to the faltering economy and high gasoline prices.

The department revised its estimate for June highway travel to a 1.9 percent increase from a year earlier, down slightly from its initial report of a 2 percent increase.

Despite the rise in highway travel, energy analyst Jim Ritterbusch said Americans still are not driving at the same levels they were before the economic collapse.

"I view it as flat lined for the time being," said Ritterbusch, president of Ritterbusch & Associates in Galena, Illinois.

"Year over year comparisons are shifting so when you take current driving miles and compare against last year, you're comparing against a period when we were undergoing steep declines," he added.

For the first seven months of year, driving was virtually unchanged, down 600 million miles compared to the same period a year ago.

Highway travel rose in every region of the country in July. The south Gulf region, made of up of eight states from Alabama to Texas, once again had the biggest increase in travel, up 2.9 percent.

The Transportation Department tracks motorists through more than 4,000 automatic traffic recorders operated by state highway agencies.

(Reporting by Ayesha Rascoe; Editing by John Picinich)