Walk or Drive?
March 9th, 2010This is interesting:
“Ivan Illich calculated that, in America in the 70’s, if you add the time spent to work to earn the money to buy a car, the time spent in the car (including traffic jam), the time spent in the health care industry because of a car crash, the time spent in the oil industry to fuel cars …etc, and you divide that by the number of kilometres traveled per year, you obtain the following calculation : 1600 hours per year per American divided by 10000 km per year per person equals 6 km per hour. So the real speed of a car would be about 3.7 miles per hour.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Illich
So, based on these figures, is driving really any more efficient than walking?
Mind you, I did read in “Super Freakonomics” that drunk walking is more dangerous - per kilometre - than drunk driving (at least for yourself).
