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Comment by mattlondon | Hacker News Reader

Size of the country has no impact on this - people become tired and distracted during long drives.

At least here in Europe there are laws (for commercial drivers) about how long you are allowed to drive for, and when you must take breaks, e.g.:

> "you must not drive more than: 9 hours in a day - this can be extended to 10 hours twice a week"

> "a break or breaks totalling at least 45 minutes after no more than 4 hours 30 minutes driving"

Perhaps the US has zero laws in this regard, but these sort of rules exist due to lots of lessons learned by tired drivers killing people. Sure these are for commercial drivers, but I'd argue that if you are doing this sort of long-distance driving frequently (i.e. not just once or twice a year) then you are no different from a commercial driver and shouldn't assume these common sense laws don't apply.

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Long distance driving in a sparsely populated country is quite different to long distance driving in a densely populated one. Driving the length of the UK means passing by 3 or 4 major cities. The road gets wider, motorways merge, traffic gets heavy, maybe there's a traffic jam or traffic lights, the drivers are mostly local and get more aggressive. It becomes mentally taxing.

Driving long distance when there's nothing around (eg the M6 between Preston and Glasgow) is so much simpler. You can definitely drive longer when you're not constantly negotiating city-adjacent traffic.

The US has similar laws, you must take a 30 minute break after 8 consecutive hours of driving and you can only drive 11 hours in a day. The point I was trying to make has nothing to do with how long you can drive safely in a day. 8 hours is still within safe limits according to our government.

> Size of the country has no impact on this - people become tired and distracted during long drives.

But size of the country (and more importantly, density) has a massive impact on how far people drive and how frequently.

Commercial truck drivers yes, private individuals: not that I'm aware of (reference needed).

> people become tired and distracted during long drives

You can have multiple drivers sharing the same vehicle. This is a common occurrence in both commercial and non-commercial situations (e.g. a family trip with two adults alternating driving and rest periods). With 3-4 drivers on hand, either traveling with the vehicle or trading off along the way, a vehicle can be operated continually without any safety concerns, making the EV with its limited endurance and long recharge times the weakest link.

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