Hi All,
This page says that Belgians averaged 15,039
kilometers in 2003 (down from 15,039 in 2002). So, if Brits and other Europeans do about the same that would be well under 10.000 miles.
I get a very "iffy" feeling in my stomach with statistics like this though. What did they actually measure? The average mileage driven per person? Per drivers license? The average mileage put on a car? Only privately owned ones, or company cars and lorries included?
Depending on that results would be very different and incomparable between countries (let alone continents) as cultural differences, (tax)laws etc etc would all distort the outcome in various probably not too fair ways. Apples and pears!
So, the only valid comparison would probably indeed be to compare the outcome within one country using exactly the same measuring method over various years. If that tells us people are driving less, then that
might a good thing.
Of course, in the States it might just prove that people are slowly resorting back to
flying more after a steep decrease of air-miles (and probably increase of road-miles) after 9-11 or so.
Or: The mileage per capita (per drivers license?) has gone down, but at the same time there has been an increase in "heads"/licenses so the net effect is still negative - more miles driven, more polluted.
Or: Maybe they
really all traveled less miles per capita, but decided to do so in a car alone more often, or in bigger gas guzzling monsters on average.
Without that sort of secondary info you might as well not know the statistic as it tells you exactly squad. The golden rule of statistics: Never trust a statistic outcome you didn't manipulate yourself
