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  #1  
Old Posted May 21, 2022, 1:03 AM
proghousehead proghousehead is offline
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% of time spent in a car

Okay so this is way out there, and doubt there’s any stats to assess this metric. But just for fun - something to consider.

My wife is from Orange County California (specifically Brea); and I was born and raised in NYC, where we both currently reside. We don’t own a car, but maybe take a taxi/Uber once or twice a week. Max time spent per week in a vehicle - possibly 1 hour?

Now when we go back to Cali, it’s often 2-3 hours per day when we are there, and that too just for everyday tasks (grocery, mall, picking/dropping nieces from
school, et al).

So on average, the time spent in a car, based on this very unscientific calculation, is 14 x higher in OC vs NYC. Which got me thinking. Depending on where you live, what do you guesstimate is the time spent weekly inside a car?
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  #2  
Old Posted May 21, 2022, 1:07 AM
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Commuting only, 50 minutes a day, 5 days a week so let's just say 4 hours total.
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  #3  
Old Posted May 21, 2022, 1:50 AM
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On average, right now (while I'm in SF), 30 minutes to an hour per month (usually to get to a restaurant too far to walk).
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  #4  
Old Posted May 21, 2022, 2:53 AM
jd3189 jd3189 is offline
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If I stay in the IE, an hour a day. If I have to commute to LA or SD, four hours those days.
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  #5  
Old Posted May 21, 2022, 3:01 AM
Kngkyle Kngkyle is offline
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Maybe an hour or two per month. Pretty much just ubers to/from airports or if I'm out late and don't want to take my chances on the CTA.
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  #6  
Old Posted May 21, 2022, 3:22 AM
muertecaza muertecaza is offline
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I commute by bike, so it's generally only in evenings or on weekends with the family. So...1-2 hours total per week on average?
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  #7  
Old Posted May 21, 2022, 3:29 AM
Buckeye Native 001 Buckeye Native 001 is offline
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Probably at least half my week since I have to drive all over Northern Arizona to meet with clients. At least I don't have to drive my own vehicle over some pretty rugged terrain.
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  #8  
Old Posted May 21, 2022, 3:37 AM
eschaton eschaton is offline
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I commute by bike in nice weather, by bus when the weather is bad. There are lots of weeks where I'm not in a car at all until the weekend. I did drive tonight to go pick up pizza, but I think it's the first time I was in a car since Sunday.
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  #9  
Old Posted May 21, 2022, 4:26 AM
llamaorama llamaorama is offline
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My commute to my office is 11 minutes or 5.5 miles via car. I work 3 days a week in the office and 2 days a week at home. I live in inner southwest Fort Worth (Ridglea/Camp Bowie area) and my office is sort of close to TCU and Zoo area of inner FW so I don't use any freeways, I take a mix of side roads and one big road (Vickery). So it's not too bad. I also live very close to the grocery store, all manner of big box chain retail stores, etc. I don't actually spend that much time in a car for suburban, sunbelt standards.

When I lived in Houston I had to drive on 59 from my apartment that was on the edges of Kingwood (by the hospital/college/northpark HEB area) into northeast Houston where my job was (the ghetto). My company was in the process of moving to another plant near Greenspoint and IAH (also the ghetto, but newer). I didn't spend that long in the car, honestly, because of all the major freeways in Houston, the Eastex is probably the least congested. But I put a lot of miles on my car, I replaced my tires twice, I hit fragments of an aluminum ladder, a brick, and a trailer hitch and drove through a puddle of paint at various points, and I had to finally say goodbye to my Honda CR-V after I got rear ended by a pickup. To summarize, Houston is a very hard place for cars. My insurance went up a ton when I was there. Between the mayhem on the roads and flooding potential* there's a strong case for owning a truck if you live there, IMO.

*During Tropical Storm Imelda my work flooded. I was sitting at my desk and water literally came gushing out under the freaking walls. Thankfully we raised up our server racks(I do IT stuff) for Harvey so they were already on cinder blocks. Later I had to walk through and inspect some things in our plant and was ankle deep in nasty brown water surrounded by a bunch of machinery that hadn't been powered off, looking back I am lucky I wasn't electrocuted. Also some stupid lady drove her 90s Ford Explorer into the water and had to wade through chest deep water. It was higher than our truck docks, to give some perspective.

Last edited by llamaorama; May 21, 2022 at 4:45 AM.
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  #10  
Old Posted May 21, 2022, 4:35 AM
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SIGSEGV SIGSEGV is offline
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Most weeks zero, but occasionally will rent a car for some reason or another. Very rarely take Lyft or Uber.
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  #11  
Old Posted May 21, 2022, 3:50 PM
iheartthed iheartthed is offline
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I only drive when I'm going outside of the city and I haven't done that in months. So maybe 1 or 2 Ubers per month? Roughly about 20-40 minutes/month?

Most cars spend the majority of their existence as expensive paper weights, since they mostly just sit idle for 90% of their useful life. Even in the most car oriented cities people will rarely spend more than a couple hours per day in their car.
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  #12  
Old Posted May 21, 2022, 4:57 PM
llamaorama llamaorama is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by iheartthed View Post
Most cars spend the majority of their existence as expensive paper weights, since they mostly just sit idle for 90% of their useful life. Even in the most car oriented cities people will rarely spend more than a couple hours per day in their car.
Car lifespans are measured in mileage though. This is why the sharing economy is a flawed concept. A subscription based robot taxi would get hundreds of thousands of miles put on it and be worn out in a fraction of the life of a private car. The real advantage would be fleet management, a fixed repair schedule, replacement parts, etc.
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  #13  
Old Posted May 21, 2022, 5:49 PM
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hipster duck hipster duck is offline
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I wfh 3 days week and commute by transit or bike the other 2. In the winter I’d drop my daughter off by car (5 minutes each way), but I do this by bike now. I’m thinking of selling our second car, which is just a glorified daycare shuttle, and buying an electric bike with fatter tires for the winter.

My only car runs are to the grocery store once/week plus miscellaneous stuff, so I’d say I spend just under 1 hour/week.

My wife commutes 25 miles to the outer suburbs with very poor transit access, so she spends 90 minutes a day, 3 days a week. So 4.5 hours/week for her. I’ve told her to look for a new job based on this alone, but she likes where she works enough to stick around despite their location.
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  #14  
Old Posted May 23, 2022, 2:01 PM
iheartthed iheartthed is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by llamaorama View Post
Car lifespans are measured in mileage though.
This is why the sharing economy is a flawed concept. A subscription based robot taxi would get hundreds of thousands of miles put on it and be worn out in a fraction of the life of a private car.
Personal cars do get measured in mileage, but utility vehicles are usually measured in time and are commonly used for decades. The post office is still using vehicles that are over 30 years old. Cars for taxis also tend to be used far longer than private vehicles. That said, most personal cars spend the vast majority of their existence sitting idle.
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  #15  
Old Posted May 23, 2022, 2:21 PM
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PhilliesPhan PhilliesPhan is offline
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I commute from my home in Northwest Philly to the office in Center City via the Regional Rail. I don't own a car but my fiancee does. If I had to guess, I probably average less than 30 minutes spent in a car during any given week. I just don't need a car to live in Philadelphia.
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  #16  
Old Posted May 23, 2022, 3:10 PM
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chris08876 chris08876 is offline
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Easton to Allentown and back. Given my usual one-way trip time and back, about 7.5 hours Monday through Friday. Figure weekend travel, 1-3 hours on average.

So on any given week, closer to 10 hours. Some weeks where traffic is okay or if I don't go out on the weekend, 8-9 hours.

Although when I was living in NJ but working in PA, average in car 10-11 hours. I was able to do a 66 mile commute in under an hour but I also hauled driving too! Factor in weekend, 12-13 hours depending on where I went.

The morning commute is not the issue but the afternoon one is. That I-78 can be annoying on the PA side. Damn truckers blocking both lanes.

Now the weekend travel is pleasure driving. Every man should have one car for commute and one car for pleasure. So the extra hours are enjoyable (usually breaking many traffic laws).
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  #17  
Old Posted May 23, 2022, 3:58 PM
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maybe an hour a week. 20ish minutes MWF @5am going to a personal trainer about 6 miles away. maybe another 15m if i drive for errands or picking up food/groceries - we share an EV for all of that, i could just get rid of mine but manuals are getting rare.
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  #18  
Old Posted May 23, 2022, 4:39 PM
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Steely Dan Steely Dan is offline
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a typical week for me might be one-hour?

but then, a lot of weeks aren't really "typical".

if we don't have some family thing to do out in the burbs (i have a lot of relatives here in the burbs) or no big far away errand to run, it could easily be zero hours.

conversely, if we head up to milwaukee to see my wife's family (as we frequently do), it could be as much as 5+ hours.

i've structured most of my day to day life to be car-free, but there is often "out of the blue" weekend stuff that is just much more easily accomplished by car.

we also have 4 big road trips around the midwest planned for this summer, so yet more driving.
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  #19  
Old Posted May 23, 2022, 5:40 PM
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muppet muppet is offline
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does a bus count? an hour a day (25-35 mins one way). If I inadvertently catch the bus back that goes down a slightly different route (the dreaded number 345 rather than the smooth sailin 49) then I might get stuck for an extra half hour, due to the bottleneck on the bridge approach. But I always bring my trusty laptop so it's fine if it does happen.
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  #20  
Old Posted May 23, 2022, 6:50 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by muppet View Post
does a bus count? an hour a day (25-35 mins one way). If I inadvertently catch the bus back that goes down a slightly different route (the dreaded number 345 rather than the smooth sailin 49) then I might get stuck for an extra half hour, due to the bottleneck on the bridge approach. But I always bring my trusty laptop so it's fine if it does happen.
That reminds me that in Romania, I've heard people say say "maşină" for both automobile and bus (I think, generally, to disambiguate a diesel bus from a tram or trolleybus).
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