Interesting Fact of the Day
Number of cars per 1000 people (from an IHT article):
Western Europe: 500
United States: 450
India: 7
Isn't it interesting that Europe has 11% more cars per person than the U.S., which seems to contradict the notion that massive taxpayer-financed investments in public transportation and $5 per gallon gasoline taxes will cut down on automobile dependence? Certainly the cars in Europe are smaller and more fuel-efficient, but it still seems surprising that Europeans own more cars than Americans.
And watch out for India. From the IHT article, "India's 216 million-member middle class is rushing to make up for decades of automotive deprivation. In the last year, Indian passenger car sales climbed 21% to 1.38 million. By 2015, they are expected to almost triple to three million."
2 Comments:
At least some of it comes from demography. The US population is younger (like under 16) than the European.
Maybe?
It's due to a quirk in the way the data is reported - SUV sales are counted as light-trucks in the US. If you add those in (as they are personal transport) the rate goes up to nearly 1,000 (
e.g. from a website (this includes all light-trucks which means its higher than that). The US has 1,148 registered personal vehicles for every 1,000 licensed drivers, 700 per 1000 in Great Britain, 608 in Japan, 208 per 1000 in Mexico--and just 11 per 1000 in India, and 9 per 1000 in China.
and my own blog post back in 2002
http://www.matthewturner.co.uk/Blog/2002/04/also-in-economist-is-table-showing-car.html
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