Superimposing time series is the biggest source of silly theories

Business Insider (link) published the following chart and declared "the end of the car age in one chart". The chart superimposed the monthly motor vehicle miles driven per capita and the labor force participation rate.

This is the conclusion of the post:

There's a logical connection between the two. Not in the workforce? You're less inclined to drive.

It's strange that they chose to show a time series going back to the 1970s. The conclusion is logical only for the last five years of the data. Looking back even another decade, to the last recession (2001), one finds the exact opposite conclusion: as the work force participation rate fell, the per-capita miles driven went up.

The other problem is causation creep, about which I have written on the sister blog (link). This chart merely shows correlation (and that is questionable). The conclusion of cause and effect is purely theory. Another theory would be the rise in telecommuting and work-from-home situations. A counter-theory would be that the unemployed may have more free time to drive. Another theory is that gas prices have gone up:

Any time series you can find that has a peak during the 2000s can be similarly interpreted as having caused people to stop driving. Here's a chart of real house prices from Calculated Risk.

Falling house prices causes people to stop driving. Or perhaps falling house prices causes people to lose jobs.