How much time do you spend in a car per week

Triathlon Forum
1

As triathlon training is all about optimizing your time available, I was wondering how much time the typical Slowtwitch Athlete spends in a car ?

For me summer:

Almost zero during the week. I try to ride to work every day if possible and go on my bike for errands/grocery store/coach son’s soccer team. On weekends, I might spend 4-6 hour in the car if I have to head out of town for a race. Let’s call it around 16 hours per month in the car, or 4 hours per week

Fall spring

Bike commute 3 days per week, drive twice, for a total of 1 hour. Plus errands and chores etc for another couple of hours. Total around 3 hours per week.

Winter

Drive pretty well every day to work a few times per week via XC ski trails before work, total of around 5 hours per week and a few away weekends to ski race adding an average of another 3. Add errands and driving my son around for another hour. Total around 9 hours per week.

So basically this adds up to 247 hours, or over 10 days per year, just sitting in car.

Weekly Average = 4.75 hours per week sitting in a car burning fossil fuels.

To put it into perspective, I don’t even do that many hours or running and swimming combined, but I do log around 350 hours per year on the bike.

What about you?

2

A self-righteous “almost none.” Haven’t owned a car since '97 and only make a rental from Avis when I need to get to a race within Ontario. No kids, live within walking distance from work (although I admittedly take the subway most days) and the neighborhood grocer is a few blocks away.

Can’t say enough good things about living car-free, though it does bum me out that i have nowhere to put triathlon-related bumper stickers.

3

Hmmm, let’s see. For me (In Atlanta) it’s all year 'round the same.

I ride or run to work every day I can, which is usually 4 days/wk.

On the weekday I do have to drive (3mi to work) , it’s because I need to go to one of several jails or courthouses outside of downtown Atlanta, which could mean anywhere from a 5 extra miles to a 110 mile round trip. It all just depends.

On the weekends, I’ll usually drive to some store on Sat and/or Sun, but we’ve managed to keep most of our lives limited within a 5 mi radius of our house. That includes groceries, clothes, movies, dinner, friends, etc. Call it maybe 20 mi per weekend for me.

So, 20 mi per weekend, plus 6 to and from work, and then anywhere from an extra 10 to an extra 110 out of town on the day I drive (call it an avg of 50 extra), means: 20+6+50=76/week.

Oh shit, now I look back and see you’ve done it in hours, not miles.

OK, call it 15 min each way to work, that’s 30 min.

Then the 50 mile avg. round trip outside of town is another 75 minutes (Traffic, ya’ know).

Then maybe another hour for the weekend travel.

Then thats (in hours): .5+1.25+1=2.75hours/week

Hmmm, not bad. I must admit, I’m grouchy on the days I have to drive to work. Just not as much fun.

T

4

…hey, if you rent a car to get to work, or if you use a taxi, you have to count that as car time :-).

5

I look at my case this way - bought the vehicle 2 1/2 years ago, there are now 44,000 km on it. That’s 17,600 km per year. I’d say I’m in said vehicle for 90% of those km, so 15,840 km per year. That’s 1320 km per month. Between highway and city driving, I’ll assume I have an average speed of 70 km per hour, that’s 18.8 hours per month. Now I round it up to 20 hours, and assume theres 4 weeks per month, so I’ll lay claim to 5 hours per week.

6

Maybe on Saturdays if I drive out to somewhere to ride. Sundays down to to the nice 50m outdoor pool. During the week, no. To work I take the cable car or the bus. If I work after 7PM, I take the taxi service home (after the free dinner).

clm

7

Cathy, you have to count taxi time and rental car time, as this all in a car last time I checked the definition of car. Don’t tell me you did not step in a car when you went to Ironman New Zealand or Kona…

I detect a lot of padding in this thread …

8

Ahh too much.

I am in sales - but let’s put a spin on this - how many hours or miles per year do you spend in a plane?

This year already - I have racked up over 120,000 ACTUAL flight miles. Now with my elite status at Continental - (you can figure out which level) that makes for a LOT of F.Flyer miles - so lots of free trips all over the place - but I am getting SO SO sick of flying - I know way too many flight crews and checking agents by name now

9

about 10 hours a week.

90 mile one way commute, 3+ hours a day, 3 days a week, plus some weekend stuff to make 10.

10

Kona: Only drove the car about 3 times–from airport; to pick up Kerri; up to ride the Hawi section; pick up mom and dad; back to airport; to NorCal BBQ.

NZ: We were in the car a little bit every day, but not much (except to drive to/from Taupo).

Taxi? Maybe 10 minutes a couple of days/week. Office to home is not far.

I got my truck 4 years ago, almost to the day, and it just turned over 30,000 miles, so less than 8,000 miles/year. A good chunk of that mileage includes multiple trips to San Diego (900 miles RT) and a couple of trips to Palm Springs.

clm

11

I live 3/4 mile from office/hospital…3mins one way. :wink:
HC

12

20 miles each way, 5-6 days a week. Takes about 25 minutes. With gas stops, social events, shipping and such I would say… 7-8 hours?

I kinda like the time though. Get to listen to Air America and get worked up about GWB and such. Hate my job so its a welcomed relief from the day.

13

I drive about 5,000 miles per year. I don’t have a real job. I walk next door to the Inn everyday. I really have not noticed gas price increases at all on the budget since we fill up about every 2-3 weeks or so.

14

I’m very pleased to tell you I drive my car about once every two weeks. Usually on the weekends for errands such as to get cat food, etc.

Our house is about 8 blocks fro the shop so i ride into work every morning. Also, our banks, Starbucks and about 10 good restaurants are all within easy, sub-10 miinute walking distance of both the house and the store.

Sarah has to drive to work because she works about 10 minutes from home and has to dress up for work.

I’m very pleased to say I barely drive at all, and I am thankful for that. Very thankful.

15

I’m in sales too with a very large territory. I typically drive 700+ miles per week. Most of my day is spent in the car.

16

Commercial Real Estate agent and I travel to ride on the weekends, gotta ge to the hills. I spend about 25-30 hours a week in the car. It really shows. You should see the inside of it.

17

…hey, if you rent a car to get to work, or if you use a taxi, you have to count that as car time :slight_smile:

I would defend my sparse numbers more vigourously, but i’m worried that I would then have to have something to show - like either $$ or race results - for all of the non-car time I have on my hands!

18

OK Cathy, we will put you down for an average of 30 min per week :-). That is pretty good.

Clearly I need to cut down my hours driving, but being a parent automatically means some car time driving my son around on the weekend. At least he walks to school most days. Living in a climate where it is minus 10-20 for 3 months also does not help the equation much :-(.

Maybe I will have to break down and eliminate one car drive in teh winter by running 10K to work and back at least one day per week this winter. We’ll see :frowning:

247 hours per year in a car is just way too much…

19

Living in a climate where it is minus 10-20 for 3 months also does not help the equation much :-(. <<

Buy him some gloves and a cap! :wink:

We were talking about you last night. Were your ears burning???

clm

20

…hey, if you rent a car to get to work, or if you use a taxi, you have to count that as car time :slight_smile:

ok… that ups my time a bit.
since my knee surgery 6 weeks ago i’ve spent a lot of time in taxis, although not over the last 3 weeks. basically, i’ve been walking places or taking public transportation. driven my car probably around 2 hours in teh last 6 weeks; maybe another 3-4 hours in other people’s cars + taxis.

i’ve got the doctor’s ok to bike now; and public transit is on strike. so hard to tell how this’ll all shake out.