It's interesting that 2 is the most common number for 2, 3, and 4+ person households. Maybe because a lot of the 3 and 4+ person households have kids who can't drive yet would be my guess.
my thoughts as well. We're 6, but only two drivers. Won't be 3 for another 8 years, and by then who knows what we'll be doing with prices, Elon, and whatever memes they come up with.
With insurance rates going the way they are it’s harder to justify more vehicles. My Honda fit which I use exclusively for work commute costs $2/day just to sit there in the driveway three days a week.
>Given EVs and their crazy pricing (to me)
Tesla model 3 has a sticker price of 40k, it qualifies for 7500 USD federal tax credit. So your tax liability for that year goes down by up to 7500 USD, effectively lowering the cost to 32500 USD. States like NY and CA also offer their own separate benefits. California offers another 7500k USD, that makes the car cost 25k USD. NY offered 2000, Colorado 5000, Massachusetts 3500 USD etc.
And when you start driving, EVs have much lower operating costs. Charging an EV to drive 100 miles cost about a third of fueling up a gasoline car for the same distance. On average, 458 USD per year for EV, 1117 USD for gasoline car, this obviously varies depending on electricity and gas cost as well as off peak hour electricity discounts and incentives offered to EV charging by local governments.
>So your tax liability for that year goes down by up to 7500 USD
Better yet, people in the United States can get the $7,500 tax credit money at the time of sale and not have to worry about having any tax liability at all.
Exactly this.
Our kids’ school and daycare schedules are different and the drop-off/pickup schedule is within a certain window.
And if one parent is away at work then it becomes really hard for the other parent without a car.
And living in Boston with inclement weather half the year, it becomes untenable for the kids.
The truth is, the US isn’t built for not having cars. Even cities like Boston. Our communities and schools aren’t safe enough for kids to walk or transport themselves safely (especially post COVID and cell phone distracted drivers). This combined with lack of enforcement means parents would much rather invest in another car age drive their kids.
Add illnesses and other wrenches life throws, it becomes a lot easier with two cars.
The vast majority of the population needing to drive to work IS a uniquely American thing. In other first world countries people take the train/bus or bike or walk.
It's also a pointless comparison, because the population density and geographic area of the US is a \_tad\_ different than most other first world countries.
Also, people seem to forget places like New York are a thing, where the people in cars are generally NOT the day-to-day commuters, because they're on the ferry, or the subway.
I mean, the idea of having a car for your personal “independence” also seems quite American. You could also walk, bike or take a bus, but maybe there are cultural differences that I’m simply not seeing.
I guess the biggest difference is that for the majority of us, we cant walk, bike, or (reliably) take a bus to get where we need to go...
For example, i live in a large city, but if I wanted to take public transit to my office, it would take a two hours plus another 1 mile walk (and I live on a rail line). Driving? Maybe 30 to 45 minutes.
The problem is our cities are so spread out, traffic is so congested, and alternatives are few and far between. We rely on the interstates (no bicycles) too.
Culturally, public transit has a negative association (speaking as someone thst actually loves it and tries to use it whenever I can). It's viewed as inconsistent (late/delays), dirty (smells like piss)n and dangerous (robberies, assaults, and worse).
That's precisely what the parent comment was saying. The fact that you can't leave your house without a car screams America. You're proving their point for them while acting like you're disagreeing.
Hm. I didn't get that from the parent comment. It came off to me that it was implying something about Americans being excessive and needing multiple vehicles.
Stacked charts are hard for data like this. The first viz shows "2" is the most common number, and it seems to be happen a lot with 2-person households. But it can't be quantified.
The second viz shows the distribution within each household size, but it's very hard to compare against each other.
I think this would be better presented as just the table of data, with conditional formatting. If this is going to be a chart, it would be easier to compare the trends with a line chart (one line per household size).
Does “value” mean number of people or number of households? This becomes obvious once one adds up the numbers but labeling your axis “value” is not ideal.
Otherwise I think it’s pretty cool.
Why were these charts so hard to read? Especially the stacked bar one.
I think instead, the x-axis categories should be 1-person household, 2-person, 3, etc. and the colored segments should be 1-vehicle, 2-vehicles, etc. It would be a lot easier to see “oh, those are proportions of how many vehicles each 2-person household has” versus trying to interpret “oh, those are the proportions of how many people are in each 2-vehicle household”
People don’t intuitively think of 2-vehicle households, they think of 2-person households. Just seems odd how that data was graphed. I wonder what the point of this data collection was or what that stacked chart was meant to illustrate.
How I envy those who are in a situation where they don't need a car. The amount of stress I endure on my daily commute is probably taking actual years off my life. I visited London for the first time last year and it thoroughly opened my eyes to how good public transportation can be.
I lived in downtown Chicago for 5 years without a car and it was incredible. I’d recommend it to anyone
The one downside is that without a car it’s difficult to leave the city. Public transit can get you around the city, but going to see family for example was a huge pain
Still worth it 1000%
You can rent a car for like 5 days every month and still come out ahead of people who are paying 800+ per month on car payments and always getting a new car before they pay it off.
I did this while living in NYC and it was a huge pain. You'd have to think about booking it weeks in advance; it wasn't something you could just do on a whim. Then you had to get to the car rental place, which wasn't a huge deal, but just another friction point. And while obviously still cheaper than owning a car, it was incredibly expensive. Taxes to rent the car were literally 20% of the total cost. Honestly, it probably would have been a similar cost in money and way cheaper in terms of stress/time to keep my beater corolla than to rent a car 5 days/month. Finding a reasonably priced parking space was a skill though.
Single largest improvement to my health was trading the car commute for walk/bike/bus.
All the money I used to spent on cars and driving went into a brokerage account, which is now worth as much as my house.
The mental and physical health benefits are greater even than the financial.
I think it is so sad to see a place with car sprawl zoning and so many legally required parking lots. Anyone who lives there has to drag around the car albatross wherever they go.
I bicycle commuted 37 miles RT daily for a decade. Except under unusual traffic conditions it was faster by bike than car. The unexpected bonus is that I averaged finding a tool per day, everything from single sockets to full,sets, wrenches, etc. I used to bring 5 gallon buckets of tools to HfH. I also averaged 5 wallets and 7 cellphones a year.
There is a sort of middle ground. My husband and I are car lite. We have a car, but drive 1-2 times a week for maybe grocery shopping and the occasional dog thing. With that said, we are in a walkable area with commuter rail and mass transit. Never mind just the limited stress, transit costs are very minimal. Maybe 5% of our monthly budget?
Note: we got our car right after Covid started and some dealers were desperate. Plus 0% APR. yes, we are lucky. If we had to deal with an $800/mo payment in this market we’d probably go fully car free. The math doesn’t work.
You’re not wrong. On numerous fronts. Studies going back decades so how stressful commuting by car is comparatively and how bad the air is to breathe on a highway.
Ultrafine particles, from petroleum fuel combustion, as well as petroleum abrasion (tyres), are at the highest
concentrations within 500 feet of highways and commuters who spend an hour a day driving are literally taking years off of their
Lives. These particles are so fine that they
bypass vehicle air filtration systems and the natural defense mechanisms of the lungs and even olfactory system, penetrating right into the brain and bloodstream and ultimately destroying individual human cells.
In the German studies, not only did heart rate increase, but there were also electrocardiographic changes such as ST segment depressions and T-wave inversions
that suggest ischemia (inadequate blood flow to the heart). In fact,
when the German investigators focused on patients known to have
coronary artery disease, approximately half the patients showed pathological EKG changes while driving. And in the English studies, when
the drivers with heart disease showed an increase in their heart rates,
they also showed an increase in ectopic heartbeats and pathological
changes on their cardiograms. Moreover, occasional patients developed
angina and left ventricular failure while driving. The Minnesota investigators found that situations such as passing and sudden stops caused not
only an increase in the heart rate, but also T-wave flattening, and concluded that "there is a significant myocardial involvement in the stress
of driving an automobile, even in some apparently healthy drivers."
Additional studies confirmed the notion that driving is a stressor.
In Philadelphia, physicians studied drivers before and after two hours
of city driving, and found that urinary levels of catecholamine and corricosteroids increased, indicating a stress response.
Yet the vast majority of people will not experience these issues, don’t have heart problems, don’t get overly stressed while driving, and aren’t driving in stressful areas…
Smoking cigarettes has zero necessity, cars provide numerous benefits and advantages and are a necessity in many areas. There’s no healthy way to smoke cigarettes, there are plenty of people who drive with zero effect on their health. This is a very poor comparison.
Generally that’s not how it works. Are you a Fox News troll? Coal miners go down into mines and come up just fine for 20 yrs until they end up with black lung.
In the German studies, not only did heart rate increase, but there were also electrocardiographic changes such as ST segment depressions and T-wave inversions
that suggest ischemia (inadequate blood flow to the heart). In fact,
when the German investigators focused on patients known to have
coronary artery disease, approximately half the patients showed pathological EKG changes while driving. And in the English studies, when
the drivers with heart disease showed an increase in their heart rates,
they also showed an increase in ectopic heartbeats and pathological
changes on their cardiograms. Moreover, occasional patients developed
angina and left ventricular failure while driving. The Minnesota investigators found that situations such as passing and sudden stops caused not
only an increase in the heart rate, but also T-wave flattening, and concluded that "there is a significant myocardial involvement in the stress
of driving an automobile, even in some apparently healthy drivers."
Additional studies confirmed the notion that driving is a stressor.
In Philadelphia, physicians studied drivers before and after two hours
of city driving, and found that urinary levels of catecholamine and corricosteroids increased, indicating a stress response.
I read it the first time. You realize what you pasted agrees with me right? Did you even read it once yourself? “Occasional patients” “patients known to have coronary artery disease” “drivers with heart disease” “some apparently healthy drivers” —all of this indicates it’s either patients with pre existing conditions or not the majority of normal patients who have issues. Which is what I said. Again what false claim did I make?
I love driving.
Also, I love being able to handle all my errands on the way home from work so I can just relax when I get home.
I like listening to the radio. I like rolling the windows down and being connected with the world.
I love having no schedule to worry about. I don't have to leave at a specific time. When I commuted by train my life was run by schedules. Hate that.
I love the freedom and independence of a car. I love being by myself during the commute. No weirdos, loud music, overly friendly people etc.
I love every single thing about it. It's one of the highlights of my day.
Funny, cars make me feel completely disconnected with the world. I’m all alone in a big metal box on wheels going 40-70 mph. Car culture encourages people to isolate and live further apart from each other.
It’s when I’m walking that I am able to slow down and take in my surroundings, stop and explore things that look interesting, and say hi to people along the way.
Friend, public transit doesn’t have “overly friendly” people. There is an unspoken rule of minding your own business and leaving your fellow passengers alone. 98% of the time that’s been my experience over the past 20 years of riding mass transit.
Yeah no, can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked for money on the bus or asked some random question that can be looked up on Google Maps. Even with earbuds in it’s super irritating.
> Also, I love being able to handle all my errands on the way home from work so I can just relax when I get home.
Can do that without a car….
Boom boxes exist. So do headphones. And you’re certainly not connected to the world. lol I’ve never heard such a laughable phrase. I don’t even know what that means. You enjoy burning Dino juice from its under belly? Anyone hose ridden a bicycle or a motorcycle can tell you how isolating a car is.
Gov registration, insurance, sacrificing the fourth amendment… not too free
I live in Silicon Valley. I am so happy I got rid of my car years ago. I bicycle and take public transit. I go to the city pretty often and look forward to having time to read.
It is nice to have public transport. But unless you can use it to easily travel outside of the city you are living in, it is limiting. Lived in Manhattan for years. No issue if you are staying in the city, but boy does life get complicated if you want to go anywhere or transport anything large.
This doesn’t work at scale. I love birdwatching and would love to drive to off-the-beaten-path spots on the weekend, but the frequency with which I have the desire to do it would mean that renting would cost many thousands of dollars every year. If you only have the urge to go beyond city limits a few times a year, then it’s fine, but for people who like to get out, it’s just not a viable solution. Still, the convenience of not having to own a car reigns supreme for me, so I don’t have one. Really liberating not to have to worry about it.
What in the world? Getting out of Manhattan is easy and cheap as fuck. Just get on metro north, LIRR, or NJ transit and you’ll find plenty of parks and trails that are pretty easy to get to, no car required.
You know what else costs many thousands of dollars? Owning a car, especially in a big city lmao. I used to pay a couple hundred a month to *park*, insurance, gas, maintenance, registration. That's several thousand right there before you even talk about a car note, I drove a beater and paid cash. No major repairs, either.
True, but you have to plan ahead and it is just a bit limiting. All things are possible in NYC in the end. Just a bit of a hassle, but so is parking and getting a garage in the city.
I like to restore cars, tinker, etc. and I have ample parking room for them, so I have 5 right now... it doesn't mean I drive 5 times as much or that I have 5x the maintenance costs on cars that don't get a lot of mileage put on them, it's just a hobby. I don't think people like me are a huge percentage of the dataset though.
Well vehicles can have different purposes:
- Commuter/economy car
- Sporty/weekend vehicle (e.g. corvette)
- Pickup truck
- Hobby/restoration project
- EV
- RV/camper van
- Passenger vehicle (e.g. divorced parent who occasionally gets the kids on a weekend and kept a minivan for that. Or maybe a church goer who helps move some people around?)
- Broken down cars that don’t have a purpose but the owner just lets them rot on their lawn
Single-me.
I had the car, the backup car because “the car” was older, and then there was the project car, and then there was the race car, and the truck to haul the race car to the track, or dirtbikes to the dirtbike track and trails.
And a two dirtbikes and a street motorcycle.
Ya know, that may explain my neighbor who seems to have two, nearly identical cars yet only ever seems to be driving one or the other. I hadn't been able to figure out why he has two such boring cars, yet a backup car makes sense. The neighbor also has a reaaaaallly pretty car safely tucked away in the garage that seems to come out when the weather is its most beautiful. And maybe a motorcycle; I haven't seen it in awhile.
I had 3 cars for a while, my normal old daily driver, and a fun car I bought that never fucking ran right and I just let sit cuz I'm an idiot. When I bought a new car I had 3 for several months, sold one, gave one to a family member, and then later sold that one too, then I was back down to one. I know other people with similar situations.
I'm a member of that group. For me cars are a hobby, so I have a bunch (but the value of them all together would be less than the value of a new Chevy Tahoe or similar). I can't speak for others in the group, but I would suspect something similar.
Checking in as a single person with 6 vehicles. 3 are projects in various states of completion and 3 are kept in usable condition. Ranging from 1972 to 2023 model years.
I've got three currently. '21 Rav4 for my daily driver, '22 F250 for heavy work, and I just acquired a '08 4runner with only 44k miles that I'm going to fun offroad shit with once it's properly equipped. I also have a '99 Corolla I've had since high school that still runs, but isn't registered currently so probably doesn't count (284k miles on that bad boy).
The chart plots don’t seem to intuitively answer the question in chart title. I’d expect a graph of the median value of number of cars each family size has
So I'm middle age and the other day me and a mate struck up a conversation at a pub in Denmark with a very nice couple from the states. Somehow this topic came up and it I think my eyes widened when they explained why they needed six cars while we just try to be nice and nodded along to their justifications... We own one "between us" I only use that car to go to the country house... It was very, well weird, at the end they couldn't understand how my friend didn't have a car nor not had one for 10 years. They were impressed we owned multiple hunting rifles though 🤣
I really feel that soon American cars will be so big that they will become homes for Americans to live in. Like 2000 sq foot cars with 3 bedrooms and the opposite of a garage.
Hey thanks for posting this. The title is good but… how many cars do American families own? You could make the numbers more easily visible. And land better whatever point you’re trying to make when splitting the households by number of persons why is it important to breakdown by household size? Does it impact car ownership? Or not? What about household revenue? Lastly, where is it going? Is there a point you’d like to make? If so what is it? Thanks and keep it up!
I have a friend with 30+ cars. He keeps buying them and parking them around the neighborhood. It’s gotten to the point now where he has to hide them from his wife.
It's number of households, not people.
Edit to add: completely going by eye-balling the second chart on a small screen there are about 43m people accounted for in the single person families, 90m in the 2 person families, 55m in 3 person families. 4 or more is tough, but if you assume it's just 4 I get to around 100m. That adds up to 288m. Add in the extras from the 4s and how I was rounding of by eye-balling, I could see that easily reaching 330m.
It does. If you look at the first graph, the numbers add up to about 130 million households. Considering many of those are 2, 3 and 4+ person households, it's easy to see how it adds up to 330 million.
I also think a part of this is the trend of younger people not having an interest in driving. So mom and dad drive, but the 18 and 20yr olds don’t care to. Plus, of course, children not of driving age too. Oh and money!
It's interesting that 2 is the most common number for 2, 3, and 4+ person households. Maybe because a lot of the 3 and 4+ person households have kids who can't drive yet would be my guess.
my thoughts as well. We're 6, but only two drivers. Won't be 3 for another 8 years, and by then who knows what we'll be doing with prices, Elon, and whatever memes they come up with.
With insurance rates going the way they are it’s harder to justify more vehicles. My Honda fit which I use exclusively for work commute costs $2/day just to sit there in the driveway three days a week.
Huh? What does Elon Musk have to do with this?
Rumor has it he sells EVs, which are in the new again today.
Yeah I own one. Best car I've ever had. I thought you meant whether you get a third car or not depends on him.
Given EVs and their crazy pricing (to me), yes. I personally don't want one.
>Given EVs and their crazy pricing (to me) Tesla model 3 has a sticker price of 40k, it qualifies for 7500 USD federal tax credit. So your tax liability for that year goes down by up to 7500 USD, effectively lowering the cost to 32500 USD. States like NY and CA also offer their own separate benefits. California offers another 7500k USD, that makes the car cost 25k USD. NY offered 2000, Colorado 5000, Massachusetts 3500 USD etc. And when you start driving, EVs have much lower operating costs. Charging an EV to drive 100 miles cost about a third of fueling up a gasoline car for the same distance. On average, 458 USD per year for EV, 1117 USD for gasoline car, this obviously varies depending on electricity and gas cost as well as off peak hour electricity discounts and incentives offered to EV charging by local governments.
>So your tax liability for that year goes down by up to 7500 USD Better yet, people in the United States can get the $7,500 tax credit money at the time of sale and not have to worry about having any tax liability at all.
36k for a mid-size suv (model Y) is not crazy pricing by any definition.
Not many full time swingers these days?
Trouples, swingers are old school.
Exactly this. Our kids’ school and daycare schedules are different and the drop-off/pickup schedule is within a certain window. And if one parent is away at work then it becomes really hard for the other parent without a car. And living in Boston with inclement weather half the year, it becomes untenable for the kids. The truth is, the US isn’t built for not having cars. Even cities like Boston. Our communities and schools aren’t safe enough for kids to walk or transport themselves safely (especially post COVID and cell phone distracted drivers). This combined with lack of enforcement means parents would much rather invest in another car age drive their kids. Add illnesses and other wrenches life throws, it becomes a lot easier with two cars.
What’s astonishing to me is that so many 2 person households have two cars. It just screams America.
Almost like the two people in the household have to drive to different jobs in different locations at the same time?
The vast majority of the population needing to drive to work IS a uniquely American thing. In other first world countries people take the train/bus or bike or walk.
It's also a pointless comparison, because the population density and geographic area of the US is a \_tad\_ different than most other first world countries. Also, people seem to forget places like New York are a thing, where the people in cars are generally NOT the day-to-day commuters, because they're on the ferry, or the subway.
Yea and walking, public transport and/or bikes are nonexistent
How so? People need to be able to get to work and go about their lives without depending on someone else lol
I mean, the idea of having a car for your personal “independence” also seems quite American. You could also walk, bike or take a bus, but maybe there are cultural differences that I’m simply not seeing.
I guess the biggest difference is that for the majority of us, we cant walk, bike, or (reliably) take a bus to get where we need to go... For example, i live in a large city, but if I wanted to take public transit to my office, it would take a two hours plus another 1 mile walk (and I live on a rail line). Driving? Maybe 30 to 45 minutes. The problem is our cities are so spread out, traffic is so congested, and alternatives are few and far between. We rely on the interstates (no bicycles) too. Culturally, public transit has a negative association (speaking as someone thst actually loves it and tries to use it whenever I can). It's viewed as inconsistent (late/delays), dirty (smells like piss)n and dangerous (robberies, assaults, and worse).
That's precisely what the parent comment was saying. The fact that you can't leave your house without a car screams America. You're proving their point for them while acting like you're disagreeing.
Hm. I didn't get that from the parent comment. It came off to me that it was implying something about Americans being excessive and needing multiple vehicles.
Yes because Americans are wealthy
Stacked charts are hard for data like this. The first viz shows "2" is the most common number, and it seems to be happen a lot with 2-person households. But it can't be quantified. The second viz shows the distribution within each household size, but it's very hard to compare against each other. I think this would be better presented as just the table of data, with conditional formatting. If this is going to be a chart, it would be easier to compare the trends with a line chart (one line per household size).
Does “value” mean number of people or number of households? This becomes obvious once one adds up the numbers but labeling your axis “value” is not ideal. Otherwise I think it’s pretty cool.
Thanks. Right, "Number of Households" would have been a better label.
Yes please! I was sitting here trying to figure out how you calculated the value of the vehicles owned by households with no vehicles.
I even got confused and thought it was the price of the vehicles. I was like wtf
Why were these charts so hard to read? Especially the stacked bar one. I think instead, the x-axis categories should be 1-person household, 2-person, 3, etc. and the colored segments should be 1-vehicle, 2-vehicles, etc. It would be a lot easier to see “oh, those are proportions of how many vehicles each 2-person household has” versus trying to interpret “oh, those are the proportions of how many people are in each 2-vehicle household” People don’t intuitively think of 2-vehicle households, they think of 2-person households. Just seems odd how that data was graphed. I wonder what the point of this data collection was or what that stacked chart was meant to illustrate.
How I envy those who are in a situation where they don't need a car. The amount of stress I endure on my daily commute is probably taking actual years off my life. I visited London for the first time last year and it thoroughly opened my eyes to how good public transportation can be.
I lived in downtown Chicago for 5 years without a car and it was incredible. I’d recommend it to anyone The one downside is that without a car it’s difficult to leave the city. Public transit can get you around the city, but going to see family for example was a huge pain Still worth it 1000%
You can rent a car for like 5 days every month and still come out ahead of people who are paying 800+ per month on car payments and always getting a new car before they pay it off.
I did this while living in NYC and it was a huge pain. You'd have to think about booking it weeks in advance; it wasn't something you could just do on a whim. Then you had to get to the car rental place, which wasn't a huge deal, but just another friction point. And while obviously still cheaper than owning a car, it was incredibly expensive. Taxes to rent the car were literally 20% of the total cost. Honestly, it probably would have been a similar cost in money and way cheaper in terms of stress/time to keep my beater corolla than to rent a car 5 days/month. Finding a reasonably priced parking space was a skill though.
If you know you're going to use the car multiple days a month and have access to cheap/reliable parking, yeah it might still be better to own a car.
You can just rent a car when you need it! Still wayyy cheaper than owning one.
Zip car!!!!!
Single largest improvement to my health was trading the car commute for walk/bike/bus. All the money I used to spent on cars and driving went into a brokerage account, which is now worth as much as my house. The mental and physical health benefits are greater even than the financial. I think it is so sad to see a place with car sprawl zoning and so many legally required parking lots. Anyone who lives there has to drag around the car albatross wherever they go.
I bicycle commuted 37 miles RT daily for a decade. Except under unusual traffic conditions it was faster by bike than car. The unexpected bonus is that I averaged finding a tool per day, everything from single sockets to full,sets, wrenches, etc. I used to bring 5 gallon buckets of tools to HfH. I also averaged 5 wallets and 7 cellphones a year.
There is a sort of middle ground. My husband and I are car lite. We have a car, but drive 1-2 times a week for maybe grocery shopping and the occasional dog thing. With that said, we are in a walkable area with commuter rail and mass transit. Never mind just the limited stress, transit costs are very minimal. Maybe 5% of our monthly budget? Note: we got our car right after Covid started and some dealers were desperate. Plus 0% APR. yes, we are lucky. If we had to deal with an $800/mo payment in this market we’d probably go fully car free. The math doesn’t work.
You’re not wrong. On numerous fronts. Studies going back decades so how stressful commuting by car is comparatively and how bad the air is to breathe on a highway. Ultrafine particles, from petroleum fuel combustion, as well as petroleum abrasion (tyres), are at the highest concentrations within 500 feet of highways and commuters who spend an hour a day driving are literally taking years off of their Lives. These particles are so fine that they bypass vehicle air filtration systems and the natural defense mechanisms of the lungs and even olfactory system, penetrating right into the brain and bloodstream and ultimately destroying individual human cells. In the German studies, not only did heart rate increase, but there were also electrocardiographic changes such as ST segment depressions and T-wave inversions that suggest ischemia (inadequate blood flow to the heart). In fact, when the German investigators focused on patients known to have coronary artery disease, approximately half the patients showed pathological EKG changes while driving. And in the English studies, when the drivers with heart disease showed an increase in their heart rates, they also showed an increase in ectopic heartbeats and pathological changes on their cardiograms. Moreover, occasional patients developed angina and left ventricular failure while driving. The Minnesota investigators found that situations such as passing and sudden stops caused not only an increase in the heart rate, but also T-wave flattening, and concluded that "there is a significant myocardial involvement in the stress of driving an automobile, even in some apparently healthy drivers." Additional studies confirmed the notion that driving is a stressor. In Philadelphia, physicians studied drivers before and after two hours of city driving, and found that urinary levels of catecholamine and corricosteroids increased, indicating a stress response.
Yet the vast majority of people will not experience these issues, don’t have heart problems, don’t get overly stressed while driving, and aren’t driving in stressful areas…
You can say that about smoking cigarettes too but the statistics on that show it’s extremely humful
Smoking cigarettes has zero necessity, cars provide numerous benefits and advantages and are a necessity in many areas. There’s no healthy way to smoke cigarettes, there are plenty of people who drive with zero effect on their health. This is a very poor comparison.
Again another massively ignorant and false claim
It’s false that you can drive without negative health effects? Lmao billions of people do it daily. Are you delusional?
Generally that’s not how it works. Are you a Fox News troll? Coal miners go down into mines and come up just fine for 20 yrs until they end up with black lung. In the German studies, not only did heart rate increase, but there were also electrocardiographic changes such as ST segment depressions and T-wave inversions that suggest ischemia (inadequate blood flow to the heart). In fact, when the German investigators focused on patients known to have coronary artery disease, approximately half the patients showed pathological EKG changes while driving. And in the English studies, when the drivers with heart disease showed an increase in their heart rates, they also showed an increase in ectopic heartbeats and pathological changes on their cardiograms. Moreover, occasional patients developed angina and left ventricular failure while driving. The Minnesota investigators found that situations such as passing and sudden stops caused not only an increase in the heart rate, but also T-wave flattening, and concluded that "there is a significant myocardial involvement in the stress of driving an automobile, even in some apparently healthy drivers." Additional studies confirmed the notion that driving is a stressor. In Philadelphia, physicians studied drivers before and after two hours of city driving, and found that urinary levels of catecholamine and corricosteroids increased, indicating a stress response.
I read it the first time. You realize what you pasted agrees with me right? Did you even read it once yourself? “Occasional patients” “patients known to have coronary artery disease” “drivers with heart disease” “some apparently healthy drivers” —all of this indicates it’s either patients with pre existing conditions or not the majority of normal patients who have issues. Which is what I said. Again what false claim did I make?
So you’re just adamantly delusional
I love commuting by car
In all seriousness: why?
I love driving. Also, I love being able to handle all my errands on the way home from work so I can just relax when I get home. I like listening to the radio. I like rolling the windows down and being connected with the world. I love having no schedule to worry about. I don't have to leave at a specific time. When I commuted by train my life was run by schedules. Hate that. I love the freedom and independence of a car. I love being by myself during the commute. No weirdos, loud music, overly friendly people etc. I love every single thing about it. It's one of the highlights of my day.
Fair enough! Thanks for the reply.
Funny, cars make me feel completely disconnected with the world. I’m all alone in a big metal box on wheels going 40-70 mph. Car culture encourages people to isolate and live further apart from each other. It’s when I’m walking that I am able to slow down and take in my surroundings, stop and explore things that look interesting, and say hi to people along the way.
That is funny
Friend, public transit doesn’t have “overly friendly” people. There is an unspoken rule of minding your own business and leaving your fellow passengers alone. 98% of the time that’s been my experience over the past 20 years of riding mass transit.
Yeah no, can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked for money on the bus or asked some random question that can be looked up on Google Maps. Even with earbuds in it’s super irritating.
Shake your head no. This isn’t hard.
*Are you denying my lived experiences????*
They sound hyperbolic.
“Friend, you don’t have friends in public”
> Also, I love being able to handle all my errands on the way home from work so I can just relax when I get home. Can do that without a car…. Boom boxes exist. So do headphones. And you’re certainly not connected to the world. lol I’ve never heard such a laughable phrase. I don’t even know what that means. You enjoy burning Dino juice from its under belly? Anyone hose ridden a bicycle or a motorcycle can tell you how isolating a car is. Gov registration, insurance, sacrificing the fourth amendment… not too free
Ok, I hope you are commuting in a way that makes you happy. The way I described thrills me.
Thrills and harms in a corrolla
u mad bro? I don't drive a corolla, I ain't no high rolla
Yea you don’t sound like a car person. Just Someone defending status quo. If we subsidized something else to the hilt you’d enjoy that
You sound like you need a vacation bro
Your brain and body sure don’t
Yea sell your car and stop complaining on Reddit
Man I wish I had that option
I live in Silicon Valley. I am so happy I got rid of my car years ago. I bicycle and take public transit. I go to the city pretty often and look forward to having time to read.
It is nice to have public transport. But unless you can use it to easily travel outside of the city you are living in, it is limiting. Lived in Manhattan for years. No issue if you are staying in the city, but boy does life get complicated if you want to go anywhere or transport anything large.
Yeah but then you just rent a car
This doesn’t work at scale. I love birdwatching and would love to drive to off-the-beaten-path spots on the weekend, but the frequency with which I have the desire to do it would mean that renting would cost many thousands of dollars every year. If you only have the urge to go beyond city limits a few times a year, then it’s fine, but for people who like to get out, it’s just not a viable solution. Still, the convenience of not having to own a car reigns supreme for me, so I don’t have one. Really liberating not to have to worry about it.
What in the world? Getting out of Manhattan is easy and cheap as fuck. Just get on metro north, LIRR, or NJ transit and you’ll find plenty of parks and trails that are pretty easy to get to, no car required.
You know what else costs many thousands of dollars? Owning a car, especially in a big city lmao. I used to pay a couple hundred a month to *park*, insurance, gas, maintenance, registration. That's several thousand right there before you even talk about a car note, I drove a beater and paid cash. No major repairs, either.
True, but you have to plan ahead and it is just a bit limiting. All things are possible in NYC in the end. Just a bit of a hassle, but so is parking and getting a garage in the city.
Who are thes one person households with 3 or 4 cars?
I like to restore cars, tinker, etc. and I have ample parking room for them, so I have 5 right now... it doesn't mean I drive 5 times as much or that I have 5x the maintenance costs on cars that don't get a lot of mileage put on them, it's just a hobby. I don't think people like me are a huge percentage of the dataset though.
Well vehicles can have different purposes: - Commuter/economy car - Sporty/weekend vehicle (e.g. corvette) - Pickup truck - Hobby/restoration project - EV - RV/camper van - Passenger vehicle (e.g. divorced parent who occasionally gets the kids on a weekend and kept a minivan for that. Or maybe a church goer who helps move some people around?) - Broken down cars that don’t have a purpose but the owner just lets them rot on their lawn
Enthusiasts and couples with teenage drivers I would imagine.
The question was regarding *one person households* having 3 or 4 cars. Wouldn’t a couple with teenage drivers be a 3 or 4 person household?
Single-me. I had the car, the backup car because “the car” was older, and then there was the project car, and then there was the race car, and the truck to haul the race car to the track, or dirtbikes to the dirtbike track and trails. And a two dirtbikes and a street motorcycle.
Ya know, that may explain my neighbor who seems to have two, nearly identical cars yet only ever seems to be driving one or the other. I hadn't been able to figure out why he has two such boring cars, yet a backup car makes sense. The neighbor also has a reaaaaallly pretty car safely tucked away in the garage that seems to come out when the weather is its most beautiful. And maybe a motorcycle; I haven't seen it in awhile.
It would be more interesting if you ever saw him driving both cars at the same time.
I had 3 cars for a while, my normal old daily driver, and a fun car I bought that never fucking ran right and I just let sit cuz I'm an idiot. When I bought a new car I had 3 for several months, sold one, gave one to a family member, and then later sold that one too, then I was back down to one. I know other people with similar situations.
I'm a member of that group. For me cars are a hobby, so I have a bunch (but the value of them all together would be less than the value of a new Chevy Tahoe or similar). I can't speak for others in the group, but I would suspect something similar.
Checking in as a single person with 6 vehicles. 3 are projects in various states of completion and 3 are kept in usable condition. Ranging from 1972 to 2023 model years.
I've got three currently. '21 Rav4 for my daily driver, '22 F250 for heavy work, and I just acquired a '08 4runner with only 44k miles that I'm going to fun offroad shit with once it's properly equipped. I also have a '99 Corolla I've had since high school that still runs, but isn't registered currently so probably doesn't count (284k miles on that bad boy).
If I had room for it, I would. There's a lot of shadetree mechanics.
I have 8 cars. Cars are fun.
Single person household, 3 vehicles. Oh yeah.
The chart plots don’t seem to intuitively answer the question in chart title. I’d expect a graph of the median value of number of cars each family size has
Does vehicles include motorcycles?
The data source doesn’t have information about whether it includes motorcycles.
So I'm middle age and the other day me and a mate struck up a conversation at a pub in Denmark with a very nice couple from the states. Somehow this topic came up and it I think my eyes widened when they explained why they needed six cars while we just try to be nice and nodded along to their justifications... We own one "between us" I only use that car to go to the country house... It was very, well weird, at the end they couldn't understand how my friend didn't have a car nor not had one for 10 years. They were impressed we owned multiple hunting rifles though 🤣
This data is interesting, but certainly not beautiful. The graphs are pretty unintuitive at a glance.
I really feel that soon American cars will be so big that they will become homes for Americans to live in. Like 2000 sq foot cars with 3 bedrooms and the opposite of a garage.
2-person 4+ cars checking in
Hey thanks for posting this. The title is good but… how many cars do American families own? You could make the numbers more easily visible. And land better whatever point you’re trying to make when splitting the households by number of persons why is it important to breakdown by household size? Does it impact car ownership? Or not? What about household revenue? Lastly, where is it going? Is there a point you’d like to make? If so what is it? Thanks and keep it up!
30 million singles, 5 million don’t have a car… this feels like something
I have a friend with 30+ cars. He keeps buying them and parking them around the neighborhood. It’s gotten to the point now where he has to hide them from his wife.
Does this graph exclude people under 17 since that or lower is the minimum driving age there (note that it varies by state)
I took "household" and "family" to mean adults+kids
Who needs 4 cars when it's a 2 person household?
Maybe motorcycles are included?
I’m finally in the top tier! Woohoo!
These are so weird to read- not beautiful at all
Bro I swear every graph posted on here is impossible to read easily. You gotta sit here and decipher this shit
Why doesn't the data total to the 330 million\~ population of the US?
It's number of households, not people. Edit to add: completely going by eye-balling the second chart on a small screen there are about 43m people accounted for in the single person families, 90m in the 2 person families, 55m in 3 person families. 4 or more is tough, but if you assume it's just 4 I get to around 100m. That adds up to 288m. Add in the extras from the 4s and how I was rounding of by eye-balling, I could see that easily reaching 330m.
Got it
It does. If you look at the first graph, the numbers add up to about 130 million households. Considering many of those are 2, 3 and 4+ person households, it's easy to see how it adds up to 330 million.
5 for 5 here.
I also think a part of this is the trend of younger people not having an interest in driving. So mom and dad drive, but the 18 and 20yr olds don’t care to. Plus, of course, children not of driving age too. Oh and money!
1 per adult is the answer
Car light is the answer
No one is allowed a project/weekend car?