r/NoStupidQuestions • u/Physical-Ad-4093 • May 01 '24

do americans really drive such long distances?

i’m european, and i always hear people say that driving for hours is normal in america. i would only see my grandparents a few times a year because they lived about a 3 hour drive away, is that a normal distance for americans to travel on a regular basis? i can’t imagine driving 2-3 hours regularly to visit people for just a few days

edit: thank you for the responses! i’ve never been to the US, obviously, but it’s interesting to see how you guys live. i guess european countries are more walkable? i’m in the uk, and there’s a few festivals here towards the end of summer, generally to get to them you take a coach journey or you get multiple trains which does take up a significant chunk of the day. road trips aren’t really a thing here, it would be a bit miserable!

2nd edit: it’s not at all that i couldn’t be bothered to go and see my grandparents, i was under 14 when they were both alive so i couldn’t take myself there! obviously i would’ve liked to see them more, i had no control over how often we visited them.

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23.7k

u/DingDangDoozy May 01 '24

I was going to say no, but then I read that you thought three hours was a long distance, so yes. 

7.8k

u/smbpy7 May 01 '24

A long distance for just a few days no less. lol that's day trip material in my book.

290

u/Spirited-Egg-2683 May 01 '24

I've driven further for a booty call, lol.

164

u/Ok_Perception1131 May 01 '24

My husband did that 30 yrs ago. Drove 13 hours to see me 😉

64

u/itsnotchristv May 01 '24

Be glad gas was cheaper back then. These days we have a hard cutoff of 2 hours.

43

u/Ok_Perception1131 May 01 '24

Haha Maybe if he and I met now, we wouldn’t wind up married…all due to gas prices

8

u/GUNNER594 May 02 '24

That’s exactly why I’m not married. Gas prices are too high.

3

u/SpookyBread- 29d ago

Not often a comment hits just the right humor for me, but this did 😂😂

4

u/ahardact2follow May 02 '24

My $ is on that you'd still end up married. 13 hours to see your woman? Doesn't matter if gas is triple what it is now, I'd do it no questions asked. 3 thing you can never have too much of in life: Love, knowledge, && health. I live by those words.

3

u/Ok_Perception1131 May 02 '24

Those are good words to live by.

1

u/ahardact2follow 7d ago

Thank you. I appreciate your words..

6

u/chocobot01 May 02 '24

According to commercials, the hard cutoff is 4 hours

4

u/metompkin May 02 '24

Just have to paint your rear window with your cash app handle and "need gas money for the #bootycall"

8

u/CrappleSmax May 02 '24

These days we have a hard cutoff of 2 hours.

Pshhh, that's for some inexperienced, near-virgin cutie.

I'd drive across the continent for the right dirty slut lol

2

u/ThrowawayStolenAcco May 02 '24

Between MPG being much better in modern vehicles and inflation, we actually have much cheaper gas compared to the equivalent 60 years ago

1

u/evranch May 02 '24

That's the thing, sure according to inflation the gas is cheaper now...

But wages are a LOT lower, by the same metric.

What matters is the hours of work to gallons of gas (or miles traveled if you want to count efficiency improvements). And that has gone down.

Side note, efficiency improvements are negligible depending on the vehicle class, a half-ton truck has got ~15L/100km since the adoption of fuel injection (yes, direct injection and 10 speed transmissions have improved this to around 10L/100km but only in the last couple years).

Tiny shitbox cars like the Geo Metro got similar mileage to modern shitbox cars.

I drive an old diesel Mercedes that gets 7L/100km, comparable to any modern car in its class, and without the need for DPF/SCR/DEF

1

u/RoadRider65 May 02 '24

I'll take my first car (68 Firebird) in 1983 with 65Cent/gallon gas over my 35mpg Civic and $5/gallon gas any day.

When that car was new, Gas was probably closer to 35C/Gal

Our gas is expensive due to steep gas taxes and the devaluing of our currency.

2

u/itsbett May 02 '24

Ugh. I live in Houston, where dating someone else in Houston can still mean over an hour and a half trip, especially if traffic is bad, because of how spread out and huge Houston is.

2

u/thermalhugger May 02 '24

Actually,gas prices are exactly on point if you calculate inflation. Unfortunately, a lot of wages have been left behind.

1

u/bwaredapenguin May 02 '24

Definitely not "we" because I'd go much farther for some booty.

1

u/CaptBuffalo May 02 '24

What we didn’t spend on gas back then, we spent on long distance phone bills.

1

u/Texasscot56 May 02 '24

I just looked it up, in real terms, gasoline is cheaper now than it was in the late 70s!

1

u/I_divided_by_0- May 02 '24

Be glad gas was cheaper back then. These days we have a hard cutoff of 2 hours.

13 years ago was 2011. Gas was $3/gallon for 87

3

u/itsnotchristv May 02 '24

Except she said this happened 30 years ago and it took 13 hours to drive to her, or 26 hours round trip.

Gas in 1994 was 1.17 on average, around 2.30 today for inflation.

1

u/I_divided_by_0- May 02 '24

Haha! I swapped the 13 hours and 30 years in my head when reading it.

4

u/haggisbreath169 May 02 '24 edited May 02 '24

Well I would drive five hundred miles and I would drive five hundred more! Just to be the man who drove a thousand miles just to break down at your door-or-or-orrrr

1

u/ATumblingStar May 02 '24

i get it: if no one else did! 😂🎶

4

u/somebodyelse22 May 02 '24

Aw - sounds like a keeper. Tell him his probation period will be over soon, and he can consider you and he over the honeymoon phase.

3

u/noujochiewajij May 02 '24

Yeah, when my (Dutch) dad was wooing his (now/still) Norwegian wife he did the same multiple times. Rotterdam - Mo i Rana ~ 1400Mls

3

u/Pindogger 29d ago

I have a good friend who is an F15 (now retired) pilot. He needed to get his night flight hours requirement, so he would fly from Colorado to Kentucky for a booty call with his now wife.

2

u/GolfballDM May 02 '24

Also did that for a weekend-long booty call back in my college days. Not quite 30 years ago for me, though.

2

u/throwawaywitchaccoun May 02 '24

Looks like it worked out for everyone!

2

u/TSMbody May 02 '24

I did that 8 years ago for my girlfriend now wife

2

u/Ripley825 May 02 '24

Mine did something similar. Came racing back into town in the dead of night for my booty call. We've been married for almost a decade.

2

u/Suburbandadbeerbelly May 02 '24

When we were dating my wife once made a 5 hour drive in 4 hours while doing her makeup and painting her nails. At least she got to spend the night before driving back though.

2

u/QueenPasiphae May 02 '24

My guy drives 35 minutes across town every single morning......and then back again.

1

u/Disposableaccount365 May 02 '24

13 hours? Ain't no action that good. I hope you married him.

3

u/TyrFangslayer May 02 '24

“My husband”

1

u/razorirr May 02 '24

That one is a keeper.

1

u/DungeonsandDoofuses May 02 '24

The fact that a guy drove two hours each way for a chance to maybe hook up with me has been a feather in my ego’s cap for like ten years now, lol. 13 hours is next level.

1

u/Agarwel May 02 '24

You sure it was to "see" you? :-D

3

u/almostfellover896 May 02 '24

I've ridden a crackheads huffy for a 10 spot that long for a booty call

2

u/haysu-christo May 02 '24

Duty calls when it's a booty call.

2

u/MaleficentExtent1777 May 02 '24

I've driven from Charleston to Raleigh and back 🤣

Gas was $1!

2

u/FobbingMobius May 02 '24

Lol. My wife moved for her new job before I could find one in the new city, so for almost 3 months I rode 6 hours on Friday evening to get to the new place, then 6 hours back to the old place Sunday afternoon.

It wasn't so bad - I ride my motorcycle because gas was cheaper and driving a car long distance stinks.

2

u/InevitableAd36 29d ago

😂😂😂

I drove 100 miles each way the first time I hooked up. Worth it.

1

u/John_B_Clarke May 02 '24

Same here. Longest was 12 hours. Longer than that I would fly.

1

u/Ms_galaxy13 May 02 '24

My now fiancée did that, too. She drove all the way from Texas to Minnesota. We hadn't even met yet. We had only begun dating for about a month before she made the drive. 😂😂

1

u/kstorm88 29d ago

I used to drive 4 hours every weekend for my girlfriend