True speed of average car commute

[WeeE]

(Is this the right forum?)

Your average 87-mile weekly car commute takes 12 hours to accomplish: so its real speed is around 7mph.

I'm kinda staggered by this - keep looking for the big obvious arithmetic mistake I must've made. But it's in the right ball-park, definitely.
Figures from AA, RAC, ONS, OfT.

Summary: If you're an average person using an average car to get to your average job in 2009 the true price of your (24 minute, 8.7 mile) twice-a-day trip is:
one-fifth of your take-home pay
and 12 hours a week out of your life (8 working + 4 travelling).

Following post to "show the working" (though I got a B for arithmetic, I warn you.)

 

[WeeE]

MONEY DEVOTED TO THE COMMUTE
(Department of Transport National survey 2005)
average car commute 24 mins per trip (48 mins per day = 4 hours per week)
Average commuting distance 8.7 miles (= just over 4,000 miles per work year.)
(ONS) The ordinary/average person's take-home pay £16,656 (1388 per month)

(AA) 2009 standing costs per annum of petrol cars under 4 years old
for cars priced at £12,000-£14,000 new = approx £3,000
for cars priced at £14000-£22,000 - approx £4,000
(split the difference figure) £3,500 running costs for average car)
+ 4,176 commuting miles @ approx 12p per mile = £500
= £4,000 cost of commuting per year = £333 per month
Around 20% of the above take-home pay...? (Sorry - I'm not very numerate.)
(According to the RAC, the average cost of running an average car in 2006 was £5,000; similar to the split-the-difference AA figure, factoring in low-moderate car use besides commute.)

TIME DEVOTED TO THE COMMUTE
20% of pay = one working day, for most people. (Is that why Mondays are so horrible even when you work different hours/days all the time?).
Plus average 4 hours per week actual travel.

So the average person occupies 12 hours a week in order to travel 87 miles: = 7.25mph.

......................
"A people can be just as dangerously overpowered by the wattage of its tools as by the caloric content of its foods." (?Ivan Illyich?)

 

[marinyork]

Certainly is in the right forum. Suppose it could have gone in Campaign too. Or P&L. And yes, cars do cost a lot to run.

 

[WeeE]

Well, it'd be an RAC or AA campaign, cos it's their figures.

 

[WeeE]

Must be pretty sickening to think that one day of a five-day week is just to feed the car...just to get you to work...to feed the car....to....

 

[Norm]

Loads of bias in that one. For instance, I don't accept that you can add the time spent working to earn the costs of the car can be added to the time commuting to give an average speed. I see that as apples and pears, two different things which cannot be added.

It also suggests that those on average pay will spend £12k to £22k on a new car.

It writes off all of the standing costs against the commute. I don't have proof of the numbers but, for a second hand car, my memory is that average mileage is somewhere between 10k and 12k miles a year, so only 1/3 of the standing costs should be taken into consideration.

The sad thing is that, even taking just 1/3 of the standing costs, it's still 6 hours a week working to earn the money for the car which, together with 4 hours commuting, makes up a big chunk of the week.

The sadder thing is that I think most who drive know and accept those costs.

 

[marinyork]

The idea in lobby group/think tank speak is "car freedom day" and that it takes up a fair bit of the year/first working day of the week .

 

[MacB]

My only problem with this is how it translates in my head. The sensible approach is to think, ditch one of the cars and save £3-5k per year. What actually plays through my head is £3-5k to spend on bikes this year But then I realise that my car finished depreciating quite some time ago. So I can only calculate based on VED, petrol, insurance and service/mot savings. My standing costs on the car are about £1k annually and, due to cycling, I'm on only my second tank of petrol this year. If not cycling then I'd be running at about £2.5k per year. In my first year of cycling I've significantly exceeded that figure in bike/kit spend.

Originally I tracked all spend and had a break even forecast, which kept moving out. That got too depressing and has now been scrapped I've now told myself that I didn't get a new car as planned so that offsets all the initial cycling outlay. Yep, just talked myself into being able to spend £2.5k in the next year if I ditch my car, oh I love this forum

 

[marinyork]

Originally I tracked all spend and had a break even forecast, which kept moving out. That got too depressing and has now been scrapped I've now told myself that I didn't get a new car as planned so that offsets all the initial cycling outlay. Yep, just talked myself into being able to spend £2.5k in the next year if I ditch my car, oh I love this forum

What on earth do you spend it on (as you don't have punctures for a start)?

 

[WeeE]

I don't accept that you can add the time spent working to earn the costs of the car can be added to the time commuting to give an average speed. I see that as apples and pears, two different things which cannot be added.

It also suggests that those on average pay will spend £12k to £22k on a new car.

It writes off all of the standing costs against the commute..

The cost is reckoned to maintain a car of four years old and less - ie the premiss is that you're buying a new one each 4 years or so.

The time spent working to earn the cost isn't "bias" it's a reflection of "time is money". It's the true cost of a car: you're spending one whole day working to have a car - mainly to get to work the other four days.

I do take your point that it's writing off the whole standing charge (in the case of the AA figure, but not the RAC figure) against work. My reason for doing that is that most people say they need to own a car (rather than say take a few taxis, hire a car now & then or belong to a car club) because they "need it for work". (These costs are actually from 2005 & 2006, while the income figure is this year's.)

One other thing I'd mildly disagree: I don't think most people do admit the continuing, annual cost of their car. Most seem to reckon it as "I spend x amount on petrol most weeks, and a couple of hundred on insurance etc". I hear them talk in hundreds, not thousands - underestimating the long-term, continuing costs by a factor of five, eight ot ten.

 

[WeeE]

The idea in lobby group/think tank speak is "car freedom day" and that it takes up a fair bit of the year/first working day of the week .

Ooh - didn't think it had a name!
And on a per-year basis....hmm...that would be, what, January and Fenruary?

 

[Brandane]

I would love to be able to commute to work on my bike, BUT; it's 25 miles each way, much of it on hilly, busy trunk roads. Factor in the weather in the west of Scotland and it's a non-starter.

Statistics are wonderful things and as has already been said in other replies, those figures don't represent the real world. Buy a good second hand car in a low VED/insurance group and the standing costs should be reasonable. Not much we can do about fuel costs as long as HM Treasury keep robbing us blind.

"the average person occupies 12 hours a week in order to travel 87 miles: = 7.25mph."

I wonder where they did the survey, inside the M25 probably??

My 25 mile commute takes about 35 minutes, average speed 42.8 mph.

 

[BentMikey]

Let's be fair though, and count door-to-door times. Your car won't be nearly as quick then, because you're leaving out a large part of the journey.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

Let's be fair though, and count door-to-door times. Your car won't be nearly as quick then, because you're leaving out a large part of the journey.

How so? It's about three seconds from my house to the car, and about thirty seconds to get to the lorry at the other end. Not a "large part" of my journey, and certainly not much compared with the time I need to shower and change when I bike it.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

The standing charges aren't so relevant for those who, like me, buy older cars with an MOT for under £500, then run them until they die. I bought my Saab a year ago for £300 and, barring fuel and an MOT test fee, haven't spent a penny on it. Oh, apart from one new tyre. I should be able to sell it for not much less than I bought it when it goes, too.