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Comment by systemvoltage | Hacker News Reader

Most HN users, especially American users, don't know that EU has 292 million cars. 780 cars/1000 capita. USA is not much different: 816 cars/1000 capita.

I live in Bay Area and people here think that EU is a utopia where cars do not exist and everyone just walks. They have a cartoonish caricature of EU in their minds.

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This data is old, but shows that despite similar numbers of vehicles people in other countries drive many fewer miles. https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar4.htm

America is twice as big as Europe by area, so driving more miles on average doesn't seem surprising.

The size of the country is irrelevant. The vast majority of personal car trips are within a metropolitan area.

Then you shouldn't be drawing conclusions from average miles driven. That doesn't further your point, I don't know if we have data for median miles driven per capita.

Most Americans have a bike in the garage, but that certainly doesn’t make us the Netherlands.

I would be curious to see what the usage patterns are. A quick google shows that the average mileage for Europeans is around 7k, while the average American drives 12k. So it would seem that Europeans drive about 60% less despite the same access to vehicles…

Color me surprised. USA is vast.

780 cars/capita is pretty high lol... Is it supposed to be per 1000?

Btw it does depend where you live but in the Netherlands you can get by without a car mostly fine if you live in a city. The biggest issue is transporting larger goods (basically any IKEA trip), but it's certainly possible (eg by renting).

Lol corrected. Yes, 1000 people. I just googled for it, but having travelled extensively in Europe, I wanted to comment on what people of Bay Area really think about Europe. It is very...VERY distorted.

The main difference I’ve noticed is that I have met people from various walks of life in Europe who literally couldn’t drive (no license) and got around fine.

Only in New York have I met someone like that here; even those who majority took public transit had cars or at least a license.

I'm in my late 20s, live in London, and that describes most people I know. It's not worth owning a car here, so people just don't end up taking their test. Even if I wanted to take it, I wouldn't get a car so would get rusty real quick.

Yes, but Bay Area and Europe are different scale :)

While I was still living in the Bay Area, once I thought I could walk from the car dealership to the rental car company, because on google maps it looked quite close... big mistake.

I live in Oakland. You'll find Oakland to be more walkable than the rest of the bay area (although you'll get robbed by the end of your walk, but that's not the point here). A rather strange concoction of terrible local politics, great food, crime through the roof, homelessness everywhere, distorted views of the rest of the world and even the rest of the bay area, very smart people working on great ideas, very smart people on ideological crusade, deep history of multiculturalism and great beer.

Oh, and potholes. I feel like it is a secret plot by the city to punish car owners.

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