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In the USA while the car has been a blessing in that it gets people
where they need to be faster it's also had negatives to it. People are not as
friendly to others and are more prone to road rage here than 40 years earlier
when cars did not play such a huge role in peoples lives. Are other countries this attached to their cars like United States citizens are.
Last edited by Ninetails; 07-02-2012 at 06:01 PM..
Reason: Spacing
Most western countries are cars dependent.
Obviously inside the center of the big or medium metropolis, you can live without a car but when you live in small cities or town even in suburbs of big cities, life is difficult without a cars.
Most European countries have low density residential area, have suburban malls and other cars dependent things.
American when they visit Europe, they only see a small part of the urbanity of the continent but most of the population don't live and don't work in centers that they visit.
Europe, even if less dependent of the car than USA, is pretty much car dependent.
Just fyi, the French invented road rage. Except they don't carry guns, so instead of shooting each other, they get out of their cars and start fistfights in the street. No lie.
Americans are attached to their cars only because they've been forced to by the Holy Trinity of the highway interests, auto industry and petroleum industry. After they banded together to wreck public transport in key cities, and cut back on inter-state public transport, they began a huge marketing campaign to convince Americans that they had a "love affair with the car". Most Americans fell for it. Unfortunately, Americans living on the economic edge (which is a higher percentage now that back in the 50's and 60's, when the Trinity was pushing cars on everyone) can't afford the cars they have to have to reach the few jobs that are available. This is an injustice.
No other country that I know of is so controlled, manipulated, and brainwashed by corporate interests. But Canada might be on the list, since our auto industry has a strong influence there. And what about Australia (just wondering)? I can't think of any other countries that have weak public transport systems.
Most western countries are cars dependent.
Obviously inside the center of the big or medium metropolis, you can live without a car but when you live in small cities or town even in suburbs of big cities, life is difficult without a cars.
Most European countries have low density residential area, have suburban malls and other cars dependent things.
American when they visit Europe, they only see a small part of the urbanity of the continent but most of the population don't live and don't work in centers that they visit.
Europe, even if less dependent of the car than USA, is pretty much car dependent.
But Europe has MUCH better public transportation! The trains! Especially in Germany and Switzerland. Buses, including those serving rural areas, and connecting small towns. Subways! Subways that take you directly into airports! These are things most Americans can only dream about.
Australia seems like it would be car dependent. It's a sprawling, fairly low population density country. Most people DO live in metropolises there though...
But Europe has MUCH better public transportation! The trains! Especially in Germany and Switzerland. Buses, including those serving rural areas, and connecting small towns. Subways! Subways that take you directly into airports! These are things most Americans can only dream about.
It´s true, Spain has an amazing infrastructure (better than Scotland and the US). It is also cheap so it attracts people to use it. However for the more "rural" places perhaps a car is better - for me anyway. But the cities here are well equipped and have good bus/metro and train links.
In MS I felt isolated without a car which I didn´t like. You can´t walk very far unlike towns/villages here.
1st world are car dependent, not the the extent of the US, the main difference is that the US cities tends to lack quality infrastructure/public transportation compared to Europe. I agree with Minatu Ku.
Australia is probably the most similar to the USA in terms of car dependency.
We're waiting to hear from the Canadians. I'm curious to know if the US auto industry was able to have the same effect on public transportation and consumer attitudes in Canada as they were in the US, or if Canada was able to fend off those predatory tactics and protect their public transport systems.
Much higher per capita transit ridership in Canadian cities than American ones. The cities generally have better public transit infrastructure, but there's plenty suburb. Towns and rural areas, they absolutely need them and we don't have the train infrastructure of other countries to service them because Canada is just so enormous and populations are very far away from each other. So a mix. Need for cars in towns and small cities, but big cities have robust transit for their populations (some better than others).
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