More cars in Poland than America?

Poland has caught up with the rest of the EU in terms of car ownership and currently there is roughly one car for every two Poles, GUS reports. I find it difficult to believe, however. that there are more cars per capita in Poland than in the US. Many Americans, not the wealthy, just ordinary people, have two cars per person (not per family), for instance a SUV and a hatchback, or a sporty car and an estate or a van and saloon.

getting rich quick,not.

Yea I guess there are more cars per capita but I have to say the vast majority are old cars ranging from the 80's to the early 2000's still on the road. This was kind of a shock to me because coming from Canada there far more newer cars on the roads but this is no surprise looking at the prices of cars in Poland! A base model ford mondeo costs around 78,000zloty or $25,442 while in Canada I bought a Lexus rx350 with all the bells and whistles I could ever wish for, for $22,000. + the wadges are significantly lower

I realise there's a lot of junkers on Poland's roads (average age is supposeldy 14 years!), but I couldn't believe Poland had more cars per capita than the USA. I think GUS got it wrong unless they excluded vans, SUVs and 4x4s and stuck to only passenger cars:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_per_ca pita

1 San Marino 1,263 2010[1]
2 Monaco 863 2008
3 USA 797 2010[1]
4 Liechtenstein 750 2010[1]
5 Iceland 745 2010[1]
6 Luxembourg 739 2010[1]
7 New Zealand 712 2010[1]
8 Australia 695 2010[1]
9 Malta 693 2010[1]
10 Italy 679 2010[1]
11 Guam 677 2004[2]
12 Puerto Rico 635 2010[1]
13 Greece 624 2010[1]
14 Finland 612 2010[1]
15 Canada 607 2009[1]

yeah, your assumption is probably right

yea and the petrol is cheaper in Canada and how many time higher are the wages?

Possibly could be account for by younger population in US and high number of new immigrants. Just a hunch though

486 (according to OP's PL link) in Poland and 797 in the US, so unless I overlooked something, we have more cars per capita in the US than in Poland

So either GUS got it wrong or didn't include all motor vehilces. The 797 per capita in the USA included vans, SUVs, pickups, all-terrain and commercial vehicles.

yeah, whatever is on the road, I guess (not sure about commercial, though).

Tricksters. It is manipulation to make people in Poland believe in economic progress of the country.

True story throw enough **** some of it will stick

Poland has more passenger cars per 1,000 people than America:

Poland: 451 (2012)
US: 423 (2012)

Also, passenger car ownership in Poland is growing while in the US it has been declining for many years.

The World Bank data: data.worldbank.org/indicator/IS.VEH.PCAR.P3

Americans have more cars per 1,000 people than Poles if commercial vehicles - such as trucks and taxicabs, registered to companies - are included.

In conclusion, Poland is a rising power, while the US is a decling power - with regard to passenger cars ;-))

there are more horse drown carriage in Poland then in the U.S.
maybe having good roads be better statistic to brag

Yes, because we like to stay rustic:

(put 'horse+carriage+poland' to google)

There are more mules in the U.S. than in Poland:

nps.gov/grca/planyourvisit/mule_trips.htm

;-)

and I believe that you guys see our pick up trucks and SUV's as commercial (which are very often privately owned and operated here) and that's what makes the difference.

Exactly what I was just about to say LOL

We have a lot of cars in the U.S I mean most people have them I got my first car when I was 16 a brand new car and I I think maybe only 30 kids in my graduating class out of 300 didnt have a new car by they graduated.

Also in the U.S Has more elctric cars than in Poland en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car_use_by_country#United_States Poland isnt even on the chart lol


Haha but that lexus was NOT new and musta had miles to it. And if you were to compare that car to one being sold in Poland it might be slightly more but it wouldn't be much more.

you have never been to Amish country I can see.

USA has many more horse and buggies than you could ever envision

HAHA We prob also have WAY more reality tv shows about them also :P

But Yes PA is packed with them

No. Pick up trucks and SUV's can be either commercial or passenger vehicles depending on their use. If a sedan belongs to a business and is registered for commercial use, then it becomes a commercial car.

Definition of passenger cars by the World Bank:

"Passenger cars refer to road motor vehicles, other than two-wheelers, intended for the carriage of passengers and designed to seat no more than nine people (including the driver)."

You have less passenger cars per 1,000 people than Poles. Face it. But you could perhaps change this - if you convince the Amish to trade their horses and buggies for cars ;-)

You don't understand tax law in the states. Very many people (me included) have small businesses and if we use the car for business it can be depreciated for reducing our taxes. The best selling vehicles in the US are pick up trucks which most have four doors and are operated like a sedan. I also own four other vehicles, my wife has one and my son has another. So for a family of three we have six vehicles. This situation is not unusual.

Our oil usage per capita in the U.S is about twice what it is in Western Europe. So we must be WAY out driving all those in europe.




It's really not about that more about our city's such as New York City if you ever go

Of all people who commute to work in New York City, 41% use the subway, 24% drive alone, 12% take the bus, 10% walk to work, 2% travel by commuter rail, 5% carpool

Our cities have great transportation and these big cities Only 5.1 million people in new york city drive to work out of 17.7 million. If our cities didnt have such great transport then more people would need cars to get around. But people in these cities don't need them there is no reason for a car, if you ever go to NYC you would see how having a car is just a pain in the ass trying to find parking is almost impossible and you pain high prices to park in parking garages also.

Also an interesting fact is that as cars have gained more MPG instead of driving the same amount we have actually increased the amount of miles we have driven. Jevons paradox

And also we use our cars for our home buisnesses because we can them write them off. In the U.S if you list your car as a business car then you are allowed to write off the gas used and the price of the car off your taxes anyone who has taken a business class in the U.S would learn this. So these cars arnt considered into the passenger car total but instead into the commercial total. I've had many friends who own car business and every car driven within the family is tech a business car so that they can write them off. This skews up the numbers in a big way, as there are a hella lot of cars missing out because they are counted as commercial vehicles when in truth they are passenger cars.

Same in Poland and everywhere else in Europe. So it doesn't affect the statistics by much.


Exactly. The cars used for commercial purposes aren't considered into the passeger car total in the U.S., Europe, Poland, and everywhere else. That's why in the category of passenger cars Poland is ahead of the U.S., but in the category of total car ownership (including commercial vehicles) the U.S. is ahead o Poland. Americans have more cars, but Poles have more passenger cars. Ownership of passenger cars in the U.S. is declining, while in Poland is growing.


It may not be unusual where you live. But it's something unheard of in New York City where 54% of housholds do not own a single car. In Manhattan 77%.


Sorry, but you must be joking. Have you ever been to Europe? Compared to EU American public transportation is dismal:

economist.com/node/18620944

New York City has relatively good public transportation - true. But subway sucks compared to most metros in Europe. It's old, noisy, expensive, breaks down constantly, and kills people (55 deaths last year).

i also find these statistics very hard to believe. as another mentioned about high school, of the 220 students in my class, i can't remember even one person that didn't get a car the minute they turned 17. in the US it's like a right of passage, you're practically issued a car once you're of age and unless you move to a big city and only need the subway, you own a car till you're dead and depend on it evey day. i'm almost hesitant to say "car" and not "vehicle" because so many people drive pickups and SUV's.

worth mentioning that in Poland it is very common for someone to not get their first car till they're in their twenties. a lot of them are in school till they're 23-24 and don't work during that time making car ownership near impossible unless mom and pop got the szmal.

Infatuation wtih hulky-bulky vehicles is a long-standing American obsession. Back in the 1960s and '70s each year the cars were advertised as long, wider, lower and more powerful until they turned into incredibly oversized, befinned, fuel-guzzling monsters. Then downsizing began and American cars took an a more compact European look. But that didn't last long because vans, SUVs, all-terrain vehicles, hybrids and pickups began dominating the scene.

As in the age of the world's ugliest cars (esp. post-1959 GM and Chrysler products) and at present, if you watch the streams of vehicles on their way to work on an expressway you will usually see one scrawny motorist surrounded by two tonnes or more of excess steel and plastic, polluting the atmoshphere with an overiszed powerplant. If even half the cars were the size of the Chevy Aveo or Fiat 500, traffic jams would become a thing of the past and the atmosphere would be grateful for the lower emissions. Sure, if someone has to drives from NY to California twice a month or from Boston to Washington each week, a larger vehicle may be needed, but big cities are clogged with motorists or a single passenger travelling 10-20 km to and from work.

nobody's arguing logistics here, just facts.

kinda off topic, patna'.

New York is the exception. A very different city that doesn't have much in common with the rest of the US.

In America everybody drives. Public transportation is not very popular nor very good compared to the rest of the World.

I live in a small town (4500 people) and I see more cars over here than I saw in Radzyn Podlaski with its 17k people or many other small towns I visited in Poland. I understand, you really want to believe your statistics but either they have a different way of counting cars or they're wrong, simple as that.

Just like Meathead said above: "You don't understand tax law in the states. Very many people (me included) have small businesses and if we use the car for business it can be depreciated for reducing our taxes. The best selling vehicles in the US are pick up trucks which most have four doors and are operated like a sedan. I also own four other vehicles, my wife has one and my son has another. So for a family of three we have six vehicles. This situation is not unusual."

all the mules in U.S. are in Washington DC.