Washington ? For the first time, the typical American family has more vehicles in the garage than licensed drivers in the house, according to the Transportation Department’s latest national survey.

There are 107 million U.S. households, each with an average of 1.9 cars, trucks or sport utility vehicles and 1.8 drivers, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics reported. That equals 204 million vehicles and 191 million drivers.

The last time the survey was conducted, in 1995, those numbers were equal.

“This is the final realization of the entire American ethos,” said Robert Lang, director of Virginia Tech’s Metropolitan Institute, which researches regional growth. “There’s a real love of the road.”

There are myriad reasons for the proliferation of vehicles: more families with two breadwinners driving separately to work, more teens with cars of their own, more families with recreational or weekend wheels, longer-lasting automobiles.

Cars once were sent to the scrap pile with 100,000 or fewer miles on their odometers. Now it’s common to drive them for 200,000 miles or more.

Debbie Dickens lives and works in Arlington, Va. She and her husband own three vehicles: a car she drives to work, a truck for his exterminating business and a family pickup.

“He doesn’t want to drive the work truck on weekends,” she said.

The Dickenses are typical: many Americans now use vehicles for specialized purposes.

The Transportation Department survey of 60,000 people, conducted in 2001 and 2002, found 91 percent of people who commute use their own cars or trucks. Of all personal vehicles, 57 percent are cars or station wagons, 21 percent vans or sport utility vehicles and 19 percent light trucks.

The survey also found 8 percent of U.S. households don’t have cars.