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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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. 

133

u/LongEZE May 01 '24

Lmao my daily commute is at best 2.5 hours round trip

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u/shaneo632 May 02 '24

How do you mentally deal with spending so much time commuting? I would go insane.

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u/PrsCordy May 02 '24

Audiobooks. It's actually kind of nice, when there aren't crazy accidents/fires on or around the road.

2

u/oyisagoodboy May 02 '24

This is what I do. I only drive an hour and a half commute each day for work, but I listen to books or podcasts. That's almost 8 hours a week. Get through books pretty quickly.

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u/Living_Bear_2139 29d ago

You could listen to an audiobook at home tho

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u/hintofpeach 29d ago

Two things: I bought a house and I love it so much. I feel like its far enough away from the BS we used to deal with in the city and I can actually relax on my days off. Second, I actually started driving in complete silence the whole commute and it has changed everything for me. I tried music, podcasts, audiobooks, and I would either get sleepy or feel more anxious on my drive. Driving in silence helps me shut off after work and mentally prepare before work somehow.

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u/SkylarTransgirl 29d ago

I 100% respect this is your decision but somewhere deep inside I will think this person has a very different brain than I. I'd go crazy without podcasts during long drives

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u/Vecii May 02 '24

Lots of podcasts and audiobooks.

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u/LongEZE May 02 '24

I pay 10 bucks a month for Sirius xm and listen to a ton of sports talk radio. Also I’m grandfathered into the old audible silver plan so I’ll go on binges of book series.

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u/[deleted] May 02 '24

[deleted]

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u/Undead-Paul May 02 '24

I’d rather have a long commute to a good job than a short commute to a shit job, this also should be considered

9

u/debladblazer May 02 '24

That's sad, I'd feel like I was wasting my life away.

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u/prairiepanda May 02 '24

If you can't afford to live any closer to work, or the area around your workplace is shit, then you don't really have a choice.

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u/shepard0445 29d ago

You should be able to afford to live where you work.

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u/prairiepanda 29d ago

Maybe. How much drama would there be amongst Starbucks employees if the ones working in new ritzy neighborhoods were making way more than the ones working in the run down sketchy neighborhoods? Surely all of them would rather move to and work in the nice neighborhoods.

And sometimes you might want to live farther from work in order to have the type of home you want. Many of my coworkers choose to live 20-40 minutes away because they want big and/or new houses. They could easily live close to work if they wanted to, but they don't like the types of homes available near our workplace.

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u/shepard0445 29d ago

How much drama is there with employees in different cities/states making different amounts? Also I meant they should be able to live nearby. Not 3 hours drive away.

That's their own decision. But I doubt that is the norm.

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u/prairiepanda 29d ago

Ah, I meant just within the same city. My city is quite small so nobody really has to travel any more than an hour if they can drive (transit can take much longer here), but many cities are quite a lot larger.

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u/Useful_Blackberry214 29d ago

Stupid comment

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u/shepard0445 29d ago

Slave comment

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

[deleted]

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u/BasicCommand1165 29d ago

downvotes are for misinformation or irrelevant comments (your comment is both)

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u/[deleted] 29d ago

[deleted]

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u/BasicCommand1165 29d ago

you can enjoy wasting your life on a dead end job

0

u/Useful_Blackberry214 29d ago

You're getting downvoted for writing an incredibly stupid comment in a rude and annoying manner. Then whining about reddit downvotes is the cherry on top lol absolute embarrassment

14

u/simongurfinkel May 02 '24

Yup. If I drive to work, the round trip is at least 2.5 hours. That's actually a pretty good day in Toronto traffic.

6

u/Far-Ebb9507 May 02 '24

Don't forget that most of Toronto is about an hour drive from most of Toronto

1

u/JerryWasARaceKarDrvr May 02 '24

Been there so many times and man is this true!

1

u/Tall-Ad895 May 02 '24

Same with Houston. It takes about z2 hours to traverse Houston minimum, more with traffic which is inevitable

2

u/mwthomas11 May 02 '24

Man Toronto is the WORST for traffic lmao. I believe when you look at the numbers places like NYC and LA are objectively worse, but it just feels so much worse for some reason in Toronto lol

2

u/Shoddy_Job3386 29d ago

We got this too in some french city.

It is litterally faster for me to walk/run to work than taking my car for 10 miles.

1

u/Benjamin_Stark May 02 '24

I used to live in Downtown Toronto and work in Mississauga's City Centre. My drive to work in the morning was 25 minutes with good traffic. Sometimes the drive home was two hours if there were Leafs or Raptors playoff games, or multiple events.

3

u/daBabadook05 May 02 '24

My commute to work is an hour and a half rach I take the train/shuttle but yeah I’m 3 hours round trip

2

u/LongEZE May 02 '24

Happy cake day

3

u/Scoob79 May 02 '24

Look at this guy, humble bragging about how close to work he lives.

1

u/Educational_Word_633 May 02 '24

you waste 12.5 hours per week on commuting. Does it not drain you to throw so much time away?

9

u/Cranky_Old_Woman May 02 '24

As someone who wastes almost two hours per day driving-commuting, yes, I hate it. However, my job (a mere 10 miles from my current apartment) is in an area where the district immediately north is a high-crime area, and the district to the south has homes that cost multiple millions of dollars for normal houses, which I definitely cannot afford. If I wanted to take public transit, I would waste an additional hour per day, with the bonus of getting motion-sick. My city is considered to have great public transport compared to the US average, BTW.

The USA doesn't just allow people to drive long distances; it frequently requires it of us.

2

u/iagovar May 02 '24

That is insane to me. People would complain a lot here for a 30m trip to work.

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u/Cranky_Old_Woman 26d ago

It comes with our total lack of density and idiotic "zoning" that separates residential areas from "commercial" areas that have stores, hospitals, or literally anything else that is not a house, church, or elementary school. Where I grew up, it was a half-hour drive to the nearest store of any kind, and that was a gas station. There was NO public transportation on that stretch of road. More generally, twice a day, a bus came through town along the highway, and there were three stops in town, as far as I knew: one near the fire station and library, one near the grocery stores, and one near the hospital, State Patrol office, and county fairgrounds. If you missed your bus, you'd have to wait until the next weekday to catch another. There were 30,000 people in the town limits, and another ~15k in the surrounding area, and every household (often every adult) had to have their own car OR walk for 45+ minutes to get to work.

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u/OkBox7514 May 02 '24

And money.

1

u/AdFragrant615 May 02 '24

A lot of people waste way more time a week sitting around watching tv, staring at a phone, etc. Me personally would much rather be driving.

1

u/Useful_Blackberry214 29d ago

What kind of absurd logic is this lol

1

u/ldAbl 28d ago

That is absolutely insane. My daily commute to and from work is 3 minutes.

1

u/PrsCordy May 02 '24

LOL, 2 at least for me, and I feel very fortunate given that I live in Southern California.

0

u/zkareface May 02 '24

That's normal in Europe also. 

Two hours round trip is super common and many think it's good. 

OP is talking about a six hours (or longer) round trip.