Slashdot Mirror
Has the Love Affair With Driving Gotten Stuck in Traffic? (washingtonpost.com)
America's love affair with the automobile and those dreams of roaring off on open highways are on the wane as the nation grapples with too much stop-and-go traffic and too many hours spent behind the steering wheel. From a report: Those findings are contained in a report to be released Thursday by Arity, a technology research spinoff created two years ago by Allstate Insurance. Arity underscored the growing disillusionment by using an illustration: Americans, on average, spend more time in their cars -- mostly driving to and from work -- than they receive in vacation time. Arity researchers said most people average 321 hours in the car each year and get 120 hours of vacation [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; an alternative source was not immediately available.]. "To me, that really crystallizes the issue," said Lisa Jillson, who leads Arity's research and design department. "I get a certain amount of vacation time, and I spend almost three times that in my car just getting back and forth to a job."
Her research showed a notable difference between millennials and baby boomers. Unhappiness with driving becomes more pronounced, with 59 percent of millennials saying they'd "rather spend time doing more productive tasks than driving," while only 45 percent of baby boomers make that same statement.
Her research showed a notable difference between millennials and baby boomers. Unhappiness with driving becomes more pronounced, with 59 percent of millennials saying they'd "rather spend time doing more productive tasks than driving," while only 45 percent of baby boomers make that same statement.
... because I'm not. I've been commuting by bicycle for the last 20 years. It's like being on vacation while getting to work -- the best part of my day! It's a bit over 20 miles (33 km) each way so I'm on the bike for about two hours/day. What's great is that I get two hours of workout in per day for essentially one hour of time (it takes 30 minutes to drive each way). The thing most motorist don't understand is riding a bike is often faster than driving. On surface streets, it's almost always faster to ride a bike during commute hours. On average, cars go about 13 mph (21 kph) in cities, which is a very easy speed to ride a bike. Yeah, I live in California, but I've commuted year 'round in Michigan too, so there...
America has written it's laws like everyone is born with a SUV strapped to their ass.
If you make our transportation systems safer for pedestrians, bicyclists, motorcyclists, and scooterists, it will cut down traffic, and reduce our dependence on oil.
Scooters, motorcycles, and mopeds help reduce traffic in other countries.
(Some scooters get 92MPG, many motorcycles get 64MPG.)
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
You do know there's a whole generation in between Boomers and Millennials right? A lot of Boomers are retired now, so if this research is being done on commuters, the people you are calling "Baby Boomers" are probably Generation X.
These studies always forget that we exist, only Boomers and Millennials matter to them. We're the ones always going "well nobody asked me" whenever we see these studies and poll results.
No need to argue, we have data!
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Gas tax comes nowhere near to paying for the cost of building and maintaining our streets and roads.
Cities plan for growth, and when it stops happening, bad things happen
Ponzi planned for growth.
Many perfectly viable businesses have upper limits on growth and seem to succeed without it. My dentist, for one example.
Have gnu, will travel.