Quote:
Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
Europe isn't all urban. It has rural areas as well, and it's not as though there are train stations and public transit in every town and village. If you live in the Irish countryside, or in rural Austria, you're driving a car. But you almost never see pickup trucks and big SUVs even in the countryside in those countries. Part of it is cultural (they're not associated with masculinity the way they are here). But a big part is cost. It's really expensive to run a car in Europe. So people buy small and try not to drive often if they can help it.
There's clearly a point at which the cost of filling up a car affects purchasing decisions and driving habits. If gas in Alberta cost $1.91 a litre (as it does in Ireland), I think you'd see a lot of people buying smaller cars and driving less. The question is whether the Alberta carbon taxes are high enough to move the needle much. I doubt they are.
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Yeah I realise that not all of Europe is urban, but there are some stark differences. We have nothing compared to the transit and transportation infrastructure in general that they do. We also do have a lot of people who use those vehicles for hauling things for work and pleasure. Its not like every guy who owns a truck is compensating for something, or just wants to be a big man. Its a useful vehicle, depending on what you do for work and things like that. So for those people a lot of them have very little choice; you're not hauling a welder around in a smart car despite it maybe saving you a few bucks on a tank of gas.