05-18-2007, 04:13 PM
Quote:When your commute to work is 20 min, you can put up with some discomfort for the sake of saving some money on gas. When your commute is 1.5-2 hours each way, it becomes an issue. I realize that in some European countries a 2 hour drive takes you half way across the country, but in the US this is pretty common. On an everyday basis, driving for 3-4 hours total in a coffin on wheels is not really an option.
AAa I thought this was Kandrathe's point.....but this doesn't make sense. Why would people in a bigger country travel farther to their work?
Time is for all of us the same.....I know many people in Holland that do twice a 1 and a half hour cardrive a day to get to and from work? Well the US is about 100 times as big would that mean that that are many people in the US that drive twice 100 hours per day to work?
The comfort issue does not make much sense, most normal cars are very comfortable.....and seeing that our driving style (not mine personally :D) is let's say much more demanding it might be even the other way around. A good thing about american driving is that people are from my experience much calmer that and the use of automatic transmission and cruise control also have a positive effect on fuel consumption.
Size of the roads is maybe a point....in the US roads are generally wider........I wouldn't like to see somebody in a RAM van try to move through the traffic of Rome......I mean most streets in the center are physically impossible to take.