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Comment by teekert | Hacker News Reader

The US is extremely car focused, which they often don't really realize. Things that are normal here (like everybody has a bike) conflicts with their cyclers vs drivers culture. Such a distinction simply does not exist here. Instead we have roads that are red with signs "Cars are guests". Or indeed city centers where cars aren't allowed.

When I go to the US I'm often surprised that you can't get to things that are only a km away by foot because a road is blocking you, no way to cross it.

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On holiday in the Florida we walked to the gated entrance to the community to ask whether delivery drivers got access or we needed to pick it up at the gate. The way they looked at us, you would think we had two heads for arriving on foot.

I once walked into a drive through in Texas (Galveston) with a group of scientists there for a conference (because main restaurant was closed), we almost got shot (no not really but people felt very very threatened and threatened us)!

In Florida gated communities, the standard transportation method is individual overpriced golf karts.

I got into an argument with a security guard at a gated community who tried to demand we give him a name, address, and "what's going on?" before he'd let us in.

Fixed that when I asked if he personally called 911 and when he said no, "So, before we make this a lot more formal, are you understanding that you are now obstructing emergency services personnel in the performance of duty?"

The last time I was in the US - a couple of decades ago, I admit - people were aghast that we walked to a store just a few hundred meters away.

3 people stopped and asked whether they can drive us somewhere... I mean, super friendly people, but... it's just a few hundred meters, come on!

You were the wild west, once!

Well, everybody rode their horse everywhere in the Wild West.

This happened to me in Germany. To be fair, I was walking 10km on a rural road with two suitcases and no sidewalk.

To be fair, there are an embarrassingly large number of places in the US where safely walking to a store a few hundred meters away would be very difficult at best.

My mother tells much the same from when we Australians were in Denver for five months in 1996 about walking a kilometre to school. Also mild astonishment at ideas like baking cakes not from a packet mix.

Mind you, there weren’t many who would walk to school like that in Australia, and the number has continued to dwindle. But there were some.

The US has very low standards for its lifestyle.

We're told we are number ONE in everything but in fact its usually 40 or 20 when you actually go look at things that matter.

We never really notice because we think filling a big house in the suburbs with garbage from Costco is living the dream.

As a naturalized American who lived in 3 other countries including two in Europe and who travels often all over the world, married to a European, etc I must say the US has its perks and it’s definitely in my top 5 countries to live. I lived mostly in the south and the east coast so I don’t have a full picture of the US as a resident. But it’s the same in Europe, living in Berlin is very different than living in Sicily, even Milan is very different than Sicily being the same country. So to be fair the US should be compared to Europe not to a particular country. The car culture in the US I think is fine because the country is built around it, the interstate system is pretty good and gas is cheap. I do like road trips very much, at my own pace not having to worry about train/flight schedules. In Europe taking long family road trips by car as we do in the US would be prohibited and even stupid in the eyes of many Europeans. I also like that you can talk to Americans everywhere and get to know people. In Europe you start talking to a stranger they look at you like you went crazy. Being social is part of having a good quality of life too, so the US ranks pretty high there.

So in the beginning of your paragraph you say it's "very different" depending on where you are in Europe, but towards the end, you generalise the entire continent.

I travel all over the world for work(Though mostly Europe) and my experience has been that Europe is a very diverse place.

Currently outside London where you can absolutely chat with random strangers(I'm from Sweden, so obviously I don't).

Yeah bit strange remark. Many people I know drive thousands of km for their summer holiday.

I don't know what you mean with family roadtrips being prohibited? Maybe too expensive, that's all I can think of. Cheap motels are rare and, obviously, fuel is much more expensive. All other necessities are easily available and legal.

You should start a timer every time you get into the car.

For most Americans it might add up to 7-10 hours a week or more.

That's a lot even over a few weeks.

That's not time walking with your kids or dog sniffing the flowers, that's the opposite.

> For most Americans it might add up to 7-10 hours a week or more.

I live in a major city. It is more like ~4 hours/wk for me. The car drives itself. It is very relaxing. It is my alone time for either thinking or listening to podcasts. I am in a nice air-conditioned, HEPA-filtered cabin and I can be on my own schedule.

>In Europe taking long family road trips by car as we do in the US would be prohibited and even stupid in the eyes of many Europeans.

What?? Caravan or road trip with regular car is a very common vacation in Europe. In France there are tons of free places to stop over the night. In the nordics you can camp anywhere that isn't close to someones house, even on private land. But no I wouldn't take the car instead of a 2-3 hour flight, especially as our cities have excellent public transportation.

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