Originally Posted by Rmay635703
Originally Posted by PimTac
Originally Posted by JeffKeryk
Originally Posted by PimTac
A couple of notes here;
The vast majority of households only had one car.
Service stations back in the day were small. Two or three pumps was the norm.
Most people didn't drive all over back then. The Interstate freeway system was still under construction. US and state highways were the only way to travel and they went through towns and cities thus slowing down travel time.
I would imagine the majority of households had zero cars. I think less than 1M cars were registered in 1912.
Does that makes sense?
Vehicle Registrations
I didn't go back that far. I was talking about the 50's and 60's.
You also had clunky bias treads, roads that were half as wide with steep drop offs in the ditch, cross traffic through the middle of freeways and a lot of steep roads with zero snow removal
(And that was in the early 80's)
Yet
highway crash, collision and death rates
even despite all that weren't much different than recent months with all our "improvements "
The only place we have made any headway is in low speed accidents. I'm guessing the pointy steel dashes had something to do with that.
Yep. Tires were definitely not as good as they are today. I remember when steel belted radials first came out.
On the low speed crashes the biggest injury maker in the car was the steering wheel. Seat belts were just lap belts then.
Getting back to the discussion, this was something I was in a discussion in several months ago. Today a trip between Seattle and Portland can be done in 2.5-3 hours ( no traffic of course). One can drive down in the morning, spend the day and drive back and be home for supper. Back in the day this trip took a big chunk of the day due to the reasons I stated earlier. One could go 50mph on the US highway if traffic allowed but speeds in towns were 25-30 mph. The highway was usually the main drag so lots of stop lights and such. I'm sure this was the same on many similar trips nationwide. The freeways really changed the equation. I remember leaving Tacoma early in the morning and getting to Portland in the early afternoon or so.
This kind of trip would affect the range of a EV I would think. But even today, at 175 miles one way, there would have to be a charging done either at the destination or on the way back.