Question of the Day: How Many Passengers On Board?
I'm not sure if former Car and Driver editor and occasional TTAC contributor Stephan Wilkinson has changed his mind about the whole QOTD deal. Originally, this site's spiritual mentor dismissed our vox populi as the worst kind of page view pandering. (The fact that our counter's broken should put paid to that idea.) I guess Stephan's ameliorated his antagonism somewhat; he recently suggested a QOTD about the Best and Brightest's passengers per vehicle. Given the gas, political and environmentally-conscious temper or our times, it's a highly relevant inquiry. Miles/CO2 per passenger must be a better measure of efficiency/environmental responsibility than what kind of car you drive. Fully loaded 'Sclade vs. one-up Prius? That ought to get you going. That said, I can't imagine a boatload of Cadillac Escalade passengers all going Dutch on a tank of fuel. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen seven people in a 'Sclade– although the TV ad makes special mention of the luxobeast's capacity for human cargo. Personally, I've started driving the Boxster to the grocery store instead of the Odyssey. I can't tell you how much better I feel about myself. So, how about you? How many people travel in your whip? Have you upped the head count since gas crested $3 a gallon? Altered the vehicle of choice?
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One. Even though my motorcycle has seats for two.
3 out of 5 working days I commute with my wife 60 mi round trip on Suzuki Aerio averaging 25 mi/gal. Other time we use Mazda 5 with 28 mi/gal.
It's usually just me in my 08 Honda Fit, but I take another 3 people from work when we go to lunch. Strangely, the car can fit 4 large people rather well. I would like to ride my bike to work again, but I think I'm going to hold off until I can get an electric bike so I don't have to shower when I get to work. As for the "last time you had fun" question (or hating an econobox comments) I took the Fit out to an autocross yesterday and shocked a lot of participants. Sadly, it was a horsepower course (over a mile long with most runs over 70 seconds) but I did manage to be several people in raw time. It was awesome bringing a car with two mountain bikes, a ton of stuff, and great A/C on between runs while spending a lot less on gas than a lot of them do.
I've got two cars that both seat 2 people max (well, 2 people and two dogs if you count the seats in the back of the 944) and a Civic sedan which I've never had more than 3 people in.