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Americans Drove Less in 2005
antifoidulus writes "CNN is reporting on a study that shows that not only did Americans buy more fuel efficient vehicles in 2005 (although sadly this trend reversed itself in the later half of 2006) but they also drove slightly less on average, according to the article, 'The drop in driving was small — the average American drove 13,657 miles (21,978.8 km) per year in 2005, down from 13,711 miles in 2004.' This is the first drop since the energy crisis of the late 70's. However, although SUV and mini-van sales have been falling, they still represent over half of the private vehicle sales in the United States."
What state has a wide yellow license plate with no graphics? And what's the circular road sign with a red border?
Even if minivans get marginally better mileage than SUVs, they still both have very poor (passenger*miles)/gallon, because they are both usually driven with few passengers. An acura, on the other hand, gets better mileage than either of them, and is also lighter and more meuverable - therefore much safer to everyone on the road. I really don't see a difference between SUVs and minivans when you consider safety and mpg together.
'The drop in driving was small -- the average American drove 13,657 miles (21,978.8 km) per year in 2005, down from 13,711 miles in 2004.
This is what passes for a slashdot story these days? OMFG.
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
Based on the Edmunds 2006 buying guide for minivans, the average gas mileage they get is around 20/26. This is only slightly less than the 22/30 gas mileage that 4 door sedans get (the Civic throws this off, otherwise it'd be around 28). Obviously there are better vehicles for getting better gas mileage, but for people that want a little more space, have a family, or need to move larger objects once in a while, minivans aren't a bad option.
I personally drive a V8 crew cab pickup truck and even got a comment from a guy I used to work with about ruining the environment. Thing is, I work from home every day and as a result drive less than 4000 miles per year. I burn far less fuel than most hybrid owners, but still have to put up with their comments about what I choose to drive. You don't know people's driving habits, so it's really not fair to make generalizations about them.
Incidentally, while we didn't NEED a pickup truck, it did make sense for us since we're remodeling our house and landscaping during the summer. We tend to haul something at least a few times a month. Our only other options would be to rent a truck or borrow someone else's truck. It's also nice having a heavier vehicle during our Wisconsin winters.
Whenever vehicle stories come up on Slashdot, I read comments about how buying an SUV is all about showing off how much money you have, and that 99% of people don't need a truck. The fact is, anyone who owns a house and puts a decent amount of work into it or has a family with at least 2 kids will make use of the space in their vehicle. Hybrid SUV's are good alternatives, but the extra cost (initial + repairs) just turns people off to them right now.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
The difference is so small that it's almost totally explained by 2004 being a leap year.
I agree wholeheartedly
I did the math and the difference is 0.3%. There's a word for that: statistical noise. It's a shame there's no one over at CNN with enough of a mathematical / scientific background to pick up on that and nix this story.
What's more is I don't trust the numbers themselves. Numbers like "13,657" and "13,711" imply a degree of precision, whereas "14 kilo-miles" (you guys should really switch to metric) does not. Given that there's no measurement error analysis I'm inclined to think these numbers are essentially the same.
In short, this is bullshit.
"Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
Parent:
Yeah, well, it's easy to drive less when you don't have a job to go to. (With link to bureau of labor and statistics)
Umm... Did you even read the site you linked to? Here are the latest numbers right on the front page. Spectacular numbers, all of them. People most certainly have jobs to go to. Probably just that more are working from home and driving less when on vacation.
Unemployment Rate:
History 4.4% in Oct 2006
Change in Unemployment Level:
History -238,000 in Oct 2006
Change in Employment Level:
History +437,000 in Oct 2006
Change in Civilian Labor Force Level:
History +199,000 in Oct 2006
10 minutes working on a sig. What a waste.
Yes, it is true that there is little difference between full-sized sports/luxury sedan and moderately sized suvs. In fact, if you do a statistical comparison between the the smallest SUVs and the largest sedans, these large sedans are worse (at least when I did that over a year ago). SUV bashing, however, is still valid. These small suvs make up only a fraction of SUV sales, and the largest are worse than anything other than something like a Ferrari.
This year, I drove more than any year before. Mostly because I am sick of the potemkin security at the airports. Although I had to go through the ID song-and-dance to get my driver's license, that was a mostly one-time thing. So when I drive I am not on anyone's list. I buy my gas with cash and pay for the motel rooms with cash too. The only thing that gets me are the plate cameras at the tollbooths, and the cell towers when I leave my phone on.
I'm not paranoid. I don't think anyone is out to get me. But driving is the closest thing we have to feasible anonymous travel nowadays -- you need id to board a plane, you even need id to buy a train-ticket - even though the people who 'check' the id wouldn't know a forgery unless it had "FAKE" stamped across it in big red letters. And don't even think about walking a couple of thousand miles, that just isn't going to happen.
Osama bin Laden has turned this country into a nation of cowards. There is not much I can do about it, but at least I still have the luxury of opting out of the herd of sheeple.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
2004 was a leap year, so it had more days, which makes the difference even less meaningful. Someone else caught it before I did, though.
As a general comment, the arguably stupid part of the fixation on SUVs is that if everyone stopped driving them tomorrow and drove a Prius instead, it would have a negligible impact on oil consumption in the US. That fixation is fundamentally misplaced.
The only way you'll make a difference is if people stop driving generally. Which means more telecommuting and smaller suburbs, something I am okay with on both accounts. Whining about SUVs is pissing in the ocean because it ignores the major causes of fuel consumption.
As something of a tangent, the reason that gas taxes are a non-solution is that the demand is inelastic because the basic infrastructure of the country forces the existing level of consumption. In most parts of the US, driving your own vehicle is actually economical, and there is no alternative in any case. You cannot automagically build a public transport infrastructure in cities with millions of people that were never designed for ubiquitous public transport. That is the real chicken-and-egg problem; for the most part it is not possible to live in the US without burning a lot of fuel even if you wanted to, and it would cost trillions of dollars to make that not the case. In that cost-benefit analysis, slow and gradual migration is a good thing.
My question to the american public would be:
Why the need for those big engine?
The average sedan in the US seems to be a V6 or V8 engine car with a capacity of +4L. While the average european sedan would be a -2.4L car (in belgium for example taxes go way up for +2.4L cars). So if the average american would deside to set his pride and ego aside and buy a car that has a somewhat lighter engine fuel consumption would be reduced by a significant amount in contrast to the absurd numbers in the article.
And don't start with arguments like: I need my big engine SUV to haul around my home redecoration material. If you need that big a car for it, half of europe wouldn't be able to redecorate his/her home or garden. All excuses to drive a big car with a big engine. Granted, some people need it but certainly not the majority of the US public.
It's time to set aside your pride and think about the money you save and above all the environment and squashed pedestrians. Bigger is not always better.
No, because that would be basically impossible without massive and expensive privacy invasion by the government (mandatory GPS tracking, anyone?) And besides, what's the advantage, emissions-wise? With regard to road maintenance, etc. well that is called a toll road.
Comparitively, tax on gas is simple and as an added benefit encourages the development of vehicles with better fuel economy. Compare the sort of vehicles generally driven in Europe (with high gas tax) to those in the US. Your average car in Europe will have far better MPG figures. Throw in some sort of tax break at the point of purchase linked to low emissions and that's not a bad system.
In the US, only Mercedes is trying to get educate the crowds in the advantages of Diesel fuel. In Europe, Diesel is actually popular, but in the US there is a stereotype that Diesel means slow and sluggish. I've recently visited the autos.yahoo.com website and I was completely baffled by the comments over there. Everyone seems to be surprised by the great fuel economy that the Mercedes-Benz 320 CDI offers and also the incredible acceleration on a highway. In Europe this would be taken for granted.
Let's take another car right now: the Honda Accord. In Europe it also has a Diesel option with the following fuel economy values: Hwy-53 mpg, City-33 mpg. It delivers 140 bhp with an immense torque of 340nm and a maximum speed (in the manual) of 136 mph. Should be taken into consideration that the values for Hwy in Europe are generally taken at a speed of 80mph, which is the recommended or imposed maximum speed on highways in most of Europe. Considering that in the US it ranges between 65 and 75, the values could be better for highway. The same applies for city values. European cities tend to be a lot more crowded and the traffic to be a lot worst than that of a US city (San Francisco does resemble an European city somewhat due to it's smaller streets and it's hills).
Our car is a Renault Megane (Renault is the "other half" of the Renault-Nissan corp.). It has a *1.5*L diesel Engine (3 year old engine) that delivers 110 bhp with an imense torque. It's mpg at 100mph on a hwy is 42 as reported by the on-board computer. That gives-it a 600+ miles range on one diesel fuel fill (15 gallons) at a higher than legal speed. If you only drive legally on hwy (less than 80mph), you could actually cross Europe on one or two fills.
Even more surprising is that the engines that are found in the US have worst performance in any given aspect than the European ones for the same volume. In Europe, for a 2L Gas Engine you can get 200 bhp at some manufacturers.
UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever ones.
I live in Harrogate, UK now and judging by the traffic, these people are just as, if not more, dependent on their cars (albeit tiny little cartoon cars) as Americans are.
Or perhaps I could have pointed out that his contention that mini-vans are usually driven with few passengers is pretty bogus. People don't buy mini-vans to feel safer, nor to feel sexy. They buy them because they need them to haul kids around, full stop. Sure mom will use them alone during the day to do errands, but then she often ends up making use of the large cargo space for groceries and other homestuffs, in which case the passenger capacity is not really wasted either.
But I thought it was just simpler to point out that "Acuras" are not a type of car but merely a brand and thus by implication anyone making comparisons with them doesn't know what the hell he is talking about.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
The following post has little real direction. More my random thoughts than anything organized.
:)
/not/ a luxury item here. Before you ask, no, front wheel drive is not sufficient to meet all conditions. Having traction on that second axle has helped me out more times than I can count, and I spend 95+% of my time in commuter traffic.
:) )
:) For another, I love to spend time in the woods, hiking, hunting, and fishing. Having an old 4x4 1/2 ton pickup means that I can get back into the brush a ways while towing a trailer or boat without worrying about it getting scratched up, also knowing that I can get myself back out again. This truck also acts as the family hauler for everything from trips to Goodwill to moving my sisters to you name it.
;)
:( Anyone know of something something like my dream vehicle in the works from anyone?
People here on Slashdot slam SUVs and minivans out of hand, which I find unfortunate. I'll grant you that there are plenty of people who buy these larger vehicles who really don't need one. There are places and times when they are absolutely an appropriate choice, though. For example, ever see a soccer mom trying to jam 5 or 6 kids into a Honda Civic after practice?
Someone else also commented that people with varied and complex lifestyles may choose these vehicles in order to meet all of their needs with a single vehicle. Many families (like mine, for example) might have one smaller and one larger vehicle.
I don't pretend to speak for everyone in the US, but I think I can shed some light on why SUVs are popular in my neck of the woods. I live in Minnesota, where we have rotten driving conditions seven months a year. 4x4s are most definitely
Personally, I don't own an SUV. I own a ten year old 4x4 Ford 1/2 ton extended cab pickup with the small gasoline V8 and 5 speed manual transmission. I bought it used back in '96. It had been on the road for 6 months and already had 12,000 miles on it. The original owner couldn't keep up the payments for some reason.
It now has nearly 235,000 miles on it. I've gone through one transmission replacement, but I'm still on the original engine and clutch. (What can I say? Dad taught me how to shift by paraphrasing that old TV show, _Kung_Fu_: "You must drive as if shifting on rice paper. You have learned how to do it well when the paper is not torn."
Why do I drive it? Well, for one it's been paid off for nearly 7 years.
Granted, with the number of miles that are on it I'll need to think about getting it replaced in a couple of years. About that time it'll have close to 300,000 miles on the engine, after all. I think I'll have gotten my money's worth out of it.
My dream replacement vehicle would be another 1/2 ton extended cab pickup or 1/2 ton SUV with a manual transmission. My engine choice would either be diesel or a hybrid for the improved mileage. Unfortunately, hardly anyone seems to know how to drive stick shifts any longer so none of the big 3 even offer a manual in a 1/2 ton anymore. Also, in this country diesels aren't being offered in anything smaller than a 3/4 ton pickup and hybrids are only now being offered in 1/4 ton SUVs.