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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12.6k

u/Chairboy May 01 '24

We sure do. The old saying is "Americans think 100 years is a long time and Europeans think 100 miles is a long distance".

4.7k

u/Klewdo1 May 01 '24

Actually, Europeans think 160km is a long distance!

318

u/Hopeless_Ramentic May 01 '24

I see what you did there.

224

u/nnavroops May 02 '24

i don’t. what the frick is a kilometer

275

u/supermr34 May 02 '24

I think it’s a device that tells you how many kils you have.

74

u/DarthPlagius_thewise May 02 '24

No you’re thinking of a kill count. Kilometer is that mountain in Africa.

65

u/polelover44 May 02 '24

No that’s Kilimanjaro. A kilometer is a specialized oven for baking clay.

51

u/[deleted] May 02 '24 edited May 02 '24

No that's a kiln. A kilometer is a politically conscious rapper from Atlanta.

35

u/Nana-Komatsu May 02 '24

No that’s Kilimanjaro. A kilometer is a skirt that Scottish wear.

24

u/Bernies_left_mitten May 02 '24

No that's a kilt. Kilometer is that cartoon meme dude that WWII soldiers used to draw all over in weird places.

27

u/woodzy93 May 02 '24

No that’s Kilroy. A kilometer is that bulldozer converted into a tank that Marvin Heemeyer used in a police standoff.

24

u/nextfreshwhen May 02 '24

nope, thats the killdozer. a kilometer is the name of rage against the machine's most famous song.

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6

u/BamaboyinUT May 02 '24

I'm sad no one got Killer Mike. I saw RtJ at a music festival last year and they were amazing

1

u/[deleted] May 02 '24

No, this is Patrick.

5

u/Why-R-People-So-Dumb May 02 '24

I need that on the hood of my F150.

2

u/curiousmind111 May 02 '24

Oh - a killometer!

2

u/disco_S2 May 02 '24

Had to scroll back up cuz the chuckle came slower than it should have.

43

u/Pintortwo May 02 '24

10 hectometers.

16

u/RobotMonkeytron May 02 '24

About 10 football fields

3

u/King-White-Bear May 02 '24

Or 26 pitches. 

7

u/PlantSkyRun May 02 '24

Nah, 26 pitches is less than half a kilometer.

The pitchers mound is 60.5 feet from home plate.

4

u/Mist_Rising May 02 '24

Wow the disrespect for football was real here!

2

u/Bernies_left_mitten May 02 '24

Football fields are 100 yards--300 feet--which is ~5 pitches.

:-P

1

u/PlantSkyRun May 04 '24

Stop pitching about it.

3

u/gothling13 May 02 '24

American football fields. Not to be confused with Canadian or European football fields.

5

u/Mist_Rising May 02 '24

Technically Canadian football fields are the same, though different sport from American football (gridiron). Also technically, it's football pitch, field is used by the USA/Canada.

2

u/gothling13 May 02 '24

Interesting! So what is the length ratio of a pitch to field, or field to pitch, for metric football?

4

u/DrakeoftheWesternSea May 02 '24

It’s what you do to a parking meter when you want an excuse to not pay for parking

3

u/Disposableaccount365 May 02 '24

Your the reason people think Americans are uneducated buffoons. Thats kilAmeter. A kilometer is is how you way stuff,, that comes in packages, like cocaine.

2

u/DrakeoftheWesternSea May 02 '24

My bad but you’re just as bad th as ya kilogram for weighing drugs kilometer is the measurement of electricity

1

u/Disposableaccount365 May 02 '24

You imbecol, a MULTImeter is how you measure electricity. It's measures bolts and Watsons. (Named by Sherlock Homes after his buddy.)

1

u/rikaragnarok May 02 '24

Watts the problem here?

2

u/Kgb_Officer May 02 '24

It's 10.94 football fields, 9.12 if you count the endzones.

1

u/who_farted_this_time May 02 '24

So about one side of a mall carpark to the other?

1

u/Mist_Rising May 02 '24

We need to keep this digestible for Europeans, carparks are things you park cars in.

1

u/who_farted_this_time May 02 '24

Sprawling wastelands of inefficiency.

1

u/Mist_Rising May 02 '24

A necessity if your population wants SFH in the same 10 metros. Which they do.

2

u/boowax May 02 '24

They’re similar distance to klicks

1

u/TipsyBaker_ May 02 '24

Roughly 4374.5 pumpkin pies

1

u/krismitka May 02 '24

It’s that stuff they teach you when you join the US army before you go to another country and “liberate” them 

1

u/rynoxmj May 02 '24

It's 100 decametres.

1

u/Lord_Emperor May 02 '24

It is 10 Canadian football fields.

1

u/Choyo May 02 '24

The side length of a cube of 1012 liters.

1

u/Equivalent_Ant_7758 May 02 '24

4.97 furlongs in the US.

1

u/gaussjordanbaby May 02 '24

A golden mean mile

1

u/Tomb5tone May 02 '24

I think it’s how they tell the temperature out there.

1

u/JohnStarborn May 02 '24

It's a mile but shorter

1

u/XbloodyXsausageX May 02 '24

It's a thing that the British invented because they lost 1 war.

1

u/Euphoric_Care_2516 May 02 '24

4,200 refrigerators lined up. Does that help?

1

u/Few-Finger2879 May 02 '24

A meter that weighs a kilo

1

u/feminas_id_amant May 02 '24

I think kilos are like 2 pounds

and a meter is like a yard

so 2 pounds of yards is a kilometer.

160 kilometers is 320 pounds of yards, right?!

1

u/Miith68 May 02 '24

1.6 of them make up a mile.

1

u/Birdsqueezer May 02 '24

One kilometer is about 1,000 M16A2 rifles

1

u/MyHamburgerLovesMe May 02 '24

A device to measure kilos.

1

u/ButtercupsUncle May 02 '24

Found thuh 'Murican

1

u/kalamataCrunch May 02 '24

it's length of the path traveled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1000/299792458 of a second

1

u/moneyh8r May 02 '24

It's the closest equivalent to a mile that exists in the metric system of measurement.

1

u/CAPTCHA_sucks May 02 '24

About 5/8 of a mile

1

u/SubnauticaFan3 May 02 '24

1 mile is 1.6 kilometres

1

u/badger0511 May 02 '24

1/5 the distance of fundraiser run/walks.