TAKE THE POLL… How efficient is the average car at moving the average person? TAKE THE POLL
Fellow Folders,
I’ve had a question lingering in my head for a while. ”How efficient does the average person think the average car is at moving the average person?”
That’s quite the riddle, I know. But given that I’m heading off for a short vacation, I thought I would see if wordpress and polldaddy could help me find an answer.
While I’m hoping for a gut response, I certainly don’t want to prevent you from doing some research and breaking out the calculator. Just wait until after you answer the question. Upon my return, I will write a post about energy efficiency, and provided I get enough responses, I will pass judgement on society in general, but not you in particular.
Now take the poll, and when you’re done, pass it on! Make this thing go viral!
Leave a Reply
The Seventh Fold
Yes, I am also interested in seeing the results of this poll AND your observations and “conclusions.” Especially since it is unclear, at least to me, what “efficiency” you are talking about. Are voters to presume you mean an “overall efficiency?” Should voters use the basis of the entire auto industry, inclusive of hybrids, Hummers and Maybachs, gasoline and diesel? Should the “gut response” have factored-in what a wasteful species, in general, we are?
Regardless, I’ll have to exclude myself from voting. It was 2 or 3 yrs ago I saw a TV-ad for some railway corporation that emphasized their “efficiency” by proclaiming how much weight they could move (many tons) some number of miles on 1 cup of “fuel” (presumably diesel). I found the claim a bit hard to take at face-value so did some research on the ‘net and made “a few” calculations. This predisposes me to something other than a “gut response.”
colinc,
I’m glad you’re interested, and I hope you change your mind and take the poll. Just because you did research doesn’t mean that you don’t have a gut response! Yours is just an educated gut response. I just don’t want people to go out and research the answer before voting.
As for the phraseology, I won’t be able to conclude much about anything from this poll for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that I’ve restricted your answer to the choices that I provided. I also won’t know whether your answer varied from mine because you measure efficiency differently or whether we have different definitions of the ‘average’ person/vehicle.
But, what I plan to do is show the range of answers that one might expect, and then you, and all other readers, can compare your gut instinct to the different scenarios.
I am interested in the results from the poll, but in no way do I think the results will be representative of the general population, and I don’t plan to make any real ‘conclusions’.
Wow, thanks for the quick and “encouraging” reply… which I’d totally not expected. Therefore, I have voted but want to note that because I’ve been subjected to the same, incessant, inane “programming” as every other(?) US resident (but excelled in math & physics) the value I selected in your poll was a bit above the upper limit of the range I’d calculated at least 2 years ago but haven’t contemplated much since. Of course, I should probably also mention that I also had factored-in many of my “biases” regarding more than a few of today’s automobiles’ beyond-absurd “features.” So, FYI and FWIW, my “purely” gut response would be (should have been?) “lower.”
So, colinc, what did you guess?
I find it interesting that you seem interested in my “guess” and that you do so a month after the “last” comment. Hmmm…
Regardless, the calculations I had made indicated that a car rated at 35-40 mpg, loaded with 4 adults (cramped quarters) and making no stops between point of origin and destination would be, at the absolute most, 21-22% “efficient.” Therefore, in your poll, knowing the predilection for “optimism,” I “guessed” 25% as that was your closest choice to the absolute best-case possibility. However, I should note, if the same car has only 1 adult and is, more “realistically,” incessantly in start-stop mode due to poorly timed lights, inanely placed stop signs and “congestion,” among other factors, that efficiency drops to less than 5%. Moreover, an SUV like my Blazer, getting only 16-17 mpg (on average), is typically less than 1% efficient.
We’re a very wasteful species AND we, generally speaking, don’t give a rat’s ass. I don’t see that changing any time soon. Like the Romans who went batshit crazy from lead poisoning, I think large numbers of our kind are severely damaged goods from all the crap we’ve been pumping into the atmosphere, dumping into the water and injecting-into/slathering-on our food (animal & vegetable) and ourselves. This is all going to end, “soon,” and very, very badly. My “bet” is 2050 sees fewer than 10 million “humans” alive on the entire planet.
BTW, what was your guess? What were the median and mean of all guesses? Do you have any data indicating any regional, gender, age or predilection?
Ooops, the last sentence (above) should read… “Do you have any data indicating any regional, gender, age or {other-qualifier} predilection?