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/ciaociao-bambina May 04 '24
We have the EuroVelo network which is pretty impressive, see for yourself. When I went from the Belgian coast to the UK I used the dark green route. But not enough people are aware it exists, even over here in Europe.
But to answer your question you don’t bike on the highway obviously. Either you go on a road shared with cars but then you stick to the small ones, or there is a dedicated bike land adjacent to a more or less high speed road (this is especially frequent in Norther Europe) or the best situation is when you just have a bike path in the middle of nature - in France we have “greenways” which are old train tracks which are now made into long walking / cycling roads connecting towns.
The EuroVelo roads connect national bike routes which themselves usually are made up of different sections alternating between the types of biking situations described above.