U.S. fast food super-size fries: 7 ounces, 610 calories.
London fries: 5.5 ounces, 485 calories.
American croissant: 4 ounces, 430 calories.
French croissant: 2 ounces, 215 calories.
American steak: 20 ounces, 1,360 calories.
English steak: 8 ounces 545 calories.
American adults who are obese: 25 percent
English adults who are obese: 7 percent
American greenhouse gas emissions per capita: 24.3 metric tons.
English greenhouse gas emissions per capita: 10.5 metric tons.
That's it, I'm moving back to England.
Why? Because too many Americans are too hungry, our roads suck, and I can never see over the cars in front of me while I drive because of all these tall SUVs.
The US has traffic lights, where chances are you'll have to stop at everyone you see. England instead is littered with roundabouts, or circles, or rotaries where you slow down, twist, and speed up again.
They yield at their damn roundabouts as well. A novel concept for many of us Americans.
In Massachusetts, New York, and Connecticut, I see people get offended when people try to pass them. You've seen it too. Admit it. It's a matter of pride, of masculinity, of something (because women, as well as men, are offended). They fight back. They speed up. People swerve to stop others from passing. Yielding must be considered a sign of weakness here.
England. Where the cars quite often have well under 100 horsepower and tiny little engines that go really fast because they don't have as much to push around, and the roads are moderately strewn with "minicars." Where there's not as much traffic, and everyone can drive a five-speed and take a bus wherever they want to go. Where the trains go most everywhere and for the rest they have busses and a system of smoothly paved four-lane (counting both directions) highways.
How many times have you complained about the US roads.
I've heard you can drive in England for ten days and not encounter a single pothole or traffic jam...
...drive in England for ten days and encounter two rude drivers overall - and see only 18 "light trucks," including both SUVs and pickups.
SUVs roll over with a greater frequency than sedan type cars, but SUVs fare much better in side and front impact accidents - the much more common type. But what does this mean? It means that if you drive a SUV, you are safer when you crash into someone, but because of your increased height and weight you are doing far greater damage to the poor sucker you hit. Its classic mentality. "Better them than me... better to keep my kids safe and possibly kill someone else�s."
The reverse is true as well, if someone hits you while you're driving an SUV they stand a greater chance at dying than you do. "Serves them right for not paying attention..."
This is the same level of thought that keeps Americans in love with hand guns. "I need to protect myself and my family." "I have the right to protect my family." Who cares if your kid may someday figure out how to get into the gun safe and accidentally shoot his best friend, your family is safe.
There are no guns in England, well, there are guns, but not nearly at the levels in the US. Assault rifles have been banned in the US for how many years? Well, there are still 4.5 million assault rifles in the hands of US citizens. A lot of good the ban is doing.
Research shows an SUV produces about a third more carbon dioxide
than the average passenger car as it also consumes one third more gasoline per mile.
Let's face it: we don't need to wrap ourselves in vehicles designed for elephant hunting to grab a coffee at the 7-11! Perhaps that�s why we love our guns and our SUVs. We dream of hunting elephants every time we help drive another locally owned coffee shop out of business while we order our half double decaf caf mocha lite lattes at StarBucks.
For most Americans, cars are tools for modern life, yet they are often the wrong tools for the job. Nearly half the trips we take are three miles or less. More than a quarter are under one mile.
Hello? Go to the grocery store a few times a week, walk back with your one bag of groceries, get some exercise.
A bicycle with a basket?
What's going on? Are we Americans missing something here?
We Americans are such great individualists. We put the individual ahead of everything. That's why we all have cars - mass transit is so collective. It just smacks of communism or socialism. Rich and poor riding alike on the same bus or train car? It makes a lot of people shudder.
We think we're quite cool, with our "in-your-face attitude." Yet, do we really like things in our faces? Is attitude really such a good thing? Would you rather spend the evening with Nelly Furtado or Howard Stern? Whoopie Goldberg or Rush Limbaugh? Chevy Chase or Amos and Andy?
The English get by much better with their complex rules of society. Put briefly, their system can be described as "be nice." With the exception of some pockets of society, and the odd soccer match, they seem to do quite well at being polite and considerate. That makes life in England much more relaxing and, in many ways, more rewarding. It also makes it safer, because few people are shot in the road for failure to yield, for being able to pass, or because some delusional person thinks I�m the buffalo he�s after in his ford Expedition.
Suvs have legitimate uses, and there are some in the UK. But its the attitudes that seem different.
Perhaps its just the smaller portions. Perhaps smaller IS better.
Hell, it might be fun to find out.
�
...and of course this entry is a case of the grass greener on the other side of the pond.
Mad cows... IRA threats, Foot and mouth diesese, No Dunkin Doughnuts Coffe, a lot of crappy weather, I'd have to relearn the language...
Nothing is ever cut an dry.
