Let’s speed up, we have no time!

I have no car. I never had one and hopefully, I never will. And yet so far I met none of the kind, as a matter of a fact, people are getting more and more irritated of me and my lifestyle. They say that the car is much faster, much more efficient and much more convenient, than my bicycle or my walking routines. But is it?

Because, in my opinion, speeding is not efficient on short distances. Is it worth starting a car and going for a ride for a grocery store that is a half mile away? Let’s try to see some numbers!

 

Googlemaps tell us, that 3 miles (an average distance I travel on a day) will take us:

-          60 minutes of walking (it takes me less than that, but let’s follow for now)

-          35 minutes of running (this is from my experience, not from google)

-          25 minutes of biking

-          10 minutes of driving

It’s funny, how while traveling on a short distances, your car doesn’t speed you up that much, because everybody have to wait for traffic lights to turn. So as I use my bike, I easily compete those car drivers, especially in “red traffic light chain”.

Let’s multiply these minutes by 10 to get a weekly number and have easy calculations; 50 weeks in a year, so 500 “3 miles” trips a year! Which will give us our yearly numbers:

-          30,000 minutes of walking

-          17,500 minutes of running

-          12,500 minutes of biking

-          5,000 minutes of driving

And now good thing we have statistics! According to U.S. Consumer Spending Statistics, an average American spend about 20% of his or her budget on transportation. And same average American works 2,000 hours, or 120,000 minutes a year. 20% of that is 24,000 minutes. A pair of shoes will cost one about $50 (250 minutes) a year for walking and twice much for running. A decent bike can cost you from $0 (craiglist) to $100 (500 minutes).

So, as a result, we have our final numbers:

-          30,250 minutes for walking

-          18,000 minutes for running

-          13,000 minutes for biking

-          29,000 minutes for driving

Does car look much faster, much more efficient now? It doesn’t, does it? To me, phrase “I ride to my Gym to do my exercises” sounds even more stupid, than it did before! Maybe, it’s finally time to stop looking for excuses and standard phrases like “car is faster”, “I can get anywhere I want”, “car is freedom”, and put some shoes on?