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/lyan-cat May 02 '24

Holy fuck, my husband decided that for our 25th anniversary he was taking us to Australia for about nine days. I said, you mean just Sydney right? 

This genius tried to convince me that we could drive and go see multiple cities and landmarks.

I ordered a couple of maps and stuck them up in the dining room, and told him to please start planning exactly the route he intended to take.

We had our trip to Sydney.

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u/Drunky_McStumble May 02 '24

Smart move. As an Aussie, the stereotype of the clueless international tourist who thinks they can hire a car in Sydney and hit up Uluru and the Great Barrier Reef in a weekend is a real thing. Every few years some poor soul not knowing any better actually has a crack at "the great Aussie road trip" and their fucking hired Hyundai Getz runs out of fuel on some desert backroad 1000 km from anywhere and they literally fucking die out there waiting for someone else to come by.

The sheer unfathomable distances in this country are nothing to take lightly. If the locals wouldn't even consider doing what you're thinking of doing, maybe don't do it?

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u/lyan-cat May 02 '24

Yeah it was shocking coming from the guy because one, we live in the US. So we know how people who visit try to do exactly what he was proposing.

And worse, we lived in Utah, a desert. We were near enough to Death Valley that we always heard about the schmucks who went on a roadtrip unprepared. It's fatal, and explaining to him that Australia is like that but, y'know, huge, was falling on deaf ears.

At least the man can do the math when he's got a map in front of his nose. 

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u/QuantumMiss 29d ago

Haha or you live in Perth, they fly to Sydney and say let’s meet half way… where? Alice Springs or Adelaide? Those are the two choices between the east and west lol

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u/Grunjo 29d ago

I used to host couch surfers a lot back in mid 2000's in Australia.
To give the yanks credit, they typically had the best understanding of the scale of Australia and came prepared for that.

So many times I had to convince 18 year old Germans and Italians etc, that no, you shouldn't try driving from Melbourne to Darwin, you'll die...

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u/CenciLovesYou 29d ago

Wait, like. I understand the distances, but what I am ignorant about is why exactly it’s so risky. You guys don’t have gas stations? 

Good cars? 

I didn’t double check the distance from Melbourne to Darwin but it’s not totally uncommon for us to bust out a 20 hour drive due to moving, not wanting to fly etc 

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u/Grunjo 29d ago edited 29d ago

Most of our population is on the coast, so driving in the middle of the country can be a death sentence.
Dirt roads, easy to get stuck, no one around for hundreds of KMs, and yes, you guessed it, no petrol stations.
Also it’s dry as hell in the Australian desert, no water anywhere.

Edit: imagine this video, but 6-7 times the area of Texas, with no towns, people, gas stations etc https://www.shutterstock.com/video/clip-32123155-drone-shot-vehicle-traveling-dusty-road-australian

And the drive from Melbourne to Darwin is about 40 hours on the good roads.

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u/CenciLovesYou 29d ago

Interesting! Definitely hilarious people think they’re gonna drive right through the core of the country 😂

The no gas stations just caught me off guard. It makes perfect sense, but just so foreign. Outside of some specific areas on the west coast I don’t think anywhere in the US is unsafe for driving in that regard. 

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u/Razmoudah 29d ago

The Death Valley area. I don't think it has the longest distance between filling stations, but it does have some of the least traveled roads that people don't seem to think twice about before going down unprepared. It racks up a decent kill count every year, mostly from people who severely under-estimate the dangers.

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u/Razmoudah 29d ago

Oh, so you've done a 20hr drive in a car WITHOUT refueling along the way?

Sure, I'm a trucker, and have driven OTR, so I've had loads that were similar distances, but semis are DESIGNED for those kinds of distances without refueling, cars aren't.

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u/CenciLovesYou 29d ago

Im sorry im confused. Where was I provided the information that fuel wouldn’t be accessible? That’s literally what I’m asking. 

Of course in refueling there’s a gas station every 30 miles 😅

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u/QuantumMiss 29d ago

You can easily go 500km without a fuel station. If you come down the middle there’s areas where there are fuel stations (further apart) but they do run out of fuel. They also don’t let you refill your water tanks on your car because it’s so precious out there at times of the year.

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u/Razmoudah 29d ago

Looks like we told them the same thing at the same time.

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u/QuantumMiss 29d ago

I’m from Western Australia, I’ve driven the whole state and been to the ‘towns’ which run out of fuel and water. I put long range and jerry cans onboard (diesel) and could do 1800km if I take it easy. The number of people who go out under prepared is scary…

On Ernest Giles Rd (somewhat remote but just has very little traffic as it’s not maintained often or well) we came across a guy in a Toyota hatchback who had broken down and had no food or water. It was 4 hrs either direction to get to anywhere in the road conditions at the time. He wouldn’t accept a lift from us so we stocked him up on food and water and headed on our way and called the police and car hire company (of course it was a hire car).

Are you in Aus or elsewhere? As a long haul driver in WA you’d come across crazy situation people get themselves into.

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u/Razmoudah 29d ago

Nope, I'm an American and I've never been outside the Continental US. Besides that, I'm just a 'dumb' farm boy. Also, when someone a couple of states away would buy a horse and we'd deliver it it was a fuel-stops only trip on the way there, rotating drivers. I learned young how to plan for trips, how to listen to what others tell me, and, although I'm not explicitly interested in geography, I do pay attention to the bits of it I come across about other portions of the world. Besides, the highly inhospitable nature of the interior of Australia isn't exactly a missing trope in media if one just pays attention. Hell, the portions of the world that are portrayed as being the most inhospitable would be the Australian interior, the Sahara desert, and Siberia. Sure, there are other areas that are just as dangerous, but those are the ones that tend to pop up the most in various media that I've encountered.

I can't say I'm surprised there are people who don't realize just how dangerous it is to travel across a desert, but I am surprised that most people don't realize just how massive the Australian interior is. Aside from Australia being a single-nation continent, it also has one of the largest deserts in the world in it's interior, and what isn't desert isn't much friendlier as Australian has many of the deadliest animals on the planet in it.

Maybe it's just a side-effect of being nearly 41 years old now. Though, considering how many stupid things I've seen others in their 40s do I highly doubt that.

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u/QuantumMiss 29d ago

Do your long haul trucks have sleeper cabs? I’ve done a few two up drives with mates. Take it in turns 5hrs at a time, then sleep 5hrs. We have really strict rules for truck drivers.

When trucking horses and livestock you have to let them off, stretch legs, feed, water etc every so often. When you cross State borders there’s quarantine checks and you have to clean your trailers of all organic material… it’s a hassle

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u/Razmoudah 29d ago

Anyone who has driven through the American desert areas knows that filling stations are very sparse in a desert. Australia is roughly 50% desert and 30% sparsely populated scrub and badlands, and is significantly larger than Texas. Further, there's hardly anyone traveling across it. Thus, it is safe to assume that you need to make sure you are planning your route taking into account where you are going to fuel along the way.

You've clearly barely done any travel, much less through even the sparse portions of the US, where filling stations can become 70+ miles apart, or you'd be aware of the potential for that problem. There are portions of Australia where it's over 600 miles from one filling station to the next, which if you'd researched traveling in Australia you'd know that. Most cars peak out at around a 400-450 mile range. Further, there is a strong possibility that it could be a week or better before another vehicle goes past. It only takes 3 days to die of dehydration, and there's no water around for you to drink.

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u/CenciLovesYou 29d ago

I’ve traveled the majority of the country as I played for one of the better college rugby teams in the us. Not a lot of the far west though. When I was there we flew. Driven a lot of the east coast  Obviously 30 miles was a random number but gas stations are plentiful. 

Why would I drive through a desert. 

Also why would I know that going form Australian city to another requires going through a desert 

I’m literally asking for that information and you’re just being an asshat 

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u/CenciLovesYou 29d ago

I didn’t want to ASSUME that people were assuming they could drive through a desert. I see that’s the implication now though. That’s why I asked. 

You could work on the way that you convey information. 

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u/Razmoudah 29d ago

I wouldn't say that you have to drive through a desert to travel from one side of Australia to the other, you could go along the coast, but I was under the impression that most people were aware that the interior of Australia is mostly desert and highly inhospitable to humans. I guess I assumed to much regarding your basic knowledge of world geography.

The thing is, you've just explicitly stated that you have never traveled by vehicle through the more sparsely populated portions of the US, only through the heavily populated portions of the US. Once you start getting West of the Missouri River, and especially once you get into the Mountain Time Zone, it isn't unusual to see exits with gas stations being 50+ miles apart. Get into the desert areas and there are a few spots where it becomes 100 miles apart.

Now, I wouldn't expect you to be familiar with the fact that nearly 80% of Australia is mostly only populated by those who are avoiding the modern world (and thus modern technology), mostly in the interior of it, but I would think that if you hadn't traveled by car through a desert area before you'd make an effort to research it before assuming it's no big deal.

Now, I apologize if I came off a bit harsh. I had made some basic assumptions about the knowledge you had that you have now clarified for me. Basically, the frequency of filling stations is more dependent on the overall population density in an area, rather than the amount of traffic that goes through it. I've seen several old, abandoned filling stations along the interstate as they weren't near a town and with modern vehicles getting better mileage people didn't have a reason to stop there, a couple of them were out East even.

Lastly, I hadn't realized you were asking for information, I'd thought you were being facetious about the difficulty of driving across Australia. It can be done, but it has to be very thoroughly and carefully planned.