Built like a Mercedes (?)

IMO, a PER CAPITA average mileage would be more instructive than
average per car. BTW, my average on my primary car is around 18K miles.
And I don't even commute - no job.

FloydR

 

A bit of a waster then in more ways than one?

Huw

 

you better hope so.

 

Considering that about 1/3 of that mileage is in support of volunteer
efforts for charitable organizations, your characterization of "waster"
is entirely inappropriate. Most of the rest is for traveling between my
three homes - us retired people have more free time to travel than
you "businessmen".

FloydR

 

Bah. Luxury. Try getting to Bafole in Cameroon.

Roads? Vass iss mit roads?

 

Dude, we have more fucking space than you do. Look at a map if
you don't believe me. Our cities are farther apart and we have
lakes the sizes of European countriesi in the way.

I'm sure with therapy you can get over this. There's probably pills
you can take too.

Now take your FBE hat off.

 

Phawr. Pics?

 

Try to get to Fabedougou Burkina Faso. The "road" ends about 4K from
the village.

 

I was just asking.

Huw

 

It is obvious you have more space but that is not the point.



It is interesting to note the psyche that *needs* to believe that 'mine is
bigger/better/longer/further than yours'.


Huw

 

Depends on your point of view.... my daughter hates riding for that long
but my wife and I love seeing the country that way.

 

Funny, I never read this discussion as being "bigger is better." Its
just that "bigger is a fact of life" and results in greater willingness
to jump in a car and drive a few hundred miles at a crack in order to go
see/do/visit or whatever. Which results in a rather different profile of
utilization for vehicles.

 

That is a typically Texan comment... (What a big state I have...)

Reminds me a story told long ago when a Texan and a South African (but you
insert any number of other countries) were arguing about the relative sizes
of their 'states'...

Towards the end the Teaxan brags, "Texas is so big that if you board a train
at one end, you're still in Texas 24 hours later."

Answer, "Yes, yes, we have (slow) trains like that, too, here..."

DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling

 

GROAN.

DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling

 

How is that relevant to nub of the argument?

So far the best guesses we have for annual mileages in NA and UK ae@

UK - 12 000 miles
US/CA - 12 000, possibly 15 000 miles.

The only way to determine whether mileages in NA are very significanlty
higher is to try to find firmer evidence for these numbers.

If, for example, the 15K figure is confirmed for NA and the UK figure (not
"Europe", another thing altogether and of no meaning) turns out to be 10K,
then we have a clear difference.

I had a quick look on Google for a UK figure but was unsuccessful so far.

I also checked the rest of this section of this thread and I could only see
a pissing contest but nationally or regionally valid averages. The comment
by one poster about considering miles per person is interesting (rather than
miles per car) but may not add much. It would certainly make the search for
data harder.

In my own case that might add maybe a guesstimated 25 - 30% to my (very low)
annual mileage (small is beautiful) because of journeys in rented cars.

DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling

 

How about hours per capita/car? One might speculate it would be closer
in the EU/US - for instance Inverness to London is around 12-13 hours for
580
miles, which is about what the 800 miles Seattle to San Francisco takes.
Generally, the US Interstate system allows shorter times for long trips;
even the secondary roads generally allow higher speeds than EU secondary
roads.

I agree that some are in a pissing contest - doesn't really matter, since
it's a real apples-to-oranges comparison.

FloydR

 

Having flogged this horse to it's constituant atoms is it now time
to compare the price of fuel and bitch about that for a month?

 

Well, my average miles per year over the last 15 years is considerably
lower than average for our area, as the office where I spend most of
my time is only 7K from home, and I make that round trip once a day.
The local airport is only 15K from home if I need to travel
internationally.

My 12 year old van has 334000 KM on it, for an average of roughly
28000 km per year. Over the last almost 3 years, I have put on 58,000
km on the van (20,000km per year), plus several thousand on my wife's
car (which really lowers the average, with only 12,000km per year
average on it over 10 years)
The 58000 km in the last three years has included a quick trip to
Florida, one to northern Michigan, one to central New York State, and
numerour trips around Ontario. 5 years ago we made a fast trip to
Winnipeg and 10 years ago to BC. I travel a lot less than either of my
neighbours.

Anyway, whether harder on the car or not, there are DEFINITE
differences between the usage a car gets between Wales and Ontario.
There are huge differences between the use they get in Ontario and
Saskatchewan (where you can watch your dog run away for a week), and
even between areas of Ontario.
Here, towns are spaced out every,15 km or so, often with villages
interspersed between, while in some areas you are litterally 50 miles
from nowhere - to get to a town of any size to get something you need
could be a 100 mile trip - one way.

 

Oh yes please! The UK has a bigger gallon and a bigger price per gallon.
Suck that!


Huw

 

Individual anecdotes may be interesting but don't help with a conclusion
about driving habits overall.

With all this to-ing and fro-ing I have become almost interested in the
subject, i.e. whether North Americans really do drive more p.a. than Brits
or, indeed, other western Europeans.

Many British "secondary" (non-motorway, if that is what you mean) roads are
actually dual carriageway and pretty 'fast'. They are just not quite at
motorway standards (different and fewer access points, no small
motorbicycles or pushbikes, e.g.) for a variety of reasons.

Would Germans have a higher average mileage? More motorways, no physical
borders (except a small one with the North Sea and Baltic in the north)...

DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling