[Surferdude]

I was leafing through an old (Dec 2009) Wheels magazine yesterday and found some interesting little snippets I thought I might share with you.

2008 Road Toll Figures

India        109,721
China        94,328
USA          43,242
Brazil         35,987
Russia       33,808
Iran           23,497
Australia      1,464

Sort of puts into perspective some of those YouTube vids from China and India doesn't it?

And, although they're a little out of date some new car sales figures from October 2009.

October 2009 YTD New Car Sales


Toyota       22.1%
Holden       13.3%
Ford          10.2%
Hyundai       7.8%
Mazda         7.0%
Mitsubishi    5.9%

And Light Car Sales Numbers for the same period

Getz 23.1%
Yaris 16.9%
Swift  11.7%
Mazda 2

Facts and Figures

Avge Annual Distance driven by Aust Pass Cars                13,700 klms
Total Reg. Pass Vehicles in 2007                                     11,500,000
Total Distance Travelled by Aust Pass Vehicles in 2007      157.6 Billion klms
The equivalent of 18 round trips to Pluto.
We used 30 Billion litres of fuel for an average pass. car figure of  11.5L/100klm

One Final Point

A quote from one of the most famous inventors of all time, Thomas Edison the inventor of the light bulb, alkaline battery and motion picures and owner of an electric car.

Motor cars are a mere fad. The railway is the future of personal transportaton
Now I ask you. Was he wrong? Or juts looking further into the future than 2010?

[agentr31]

clearly he was wrong LOL i dont see a railway siding out the front of my house!!

[Dazzler]

Hi Trev,

Would be interesting exercise to work out those road tolls versus total pop (e.g. per capita)

I think Hyundai has just passed (or is close to passing) Ford now for 3rd spot in Australia...

[Opa_1]

Interesting indeed. Didn't realise Toyota had such a big jump on Holden and Ford. 'Did you have something to do with this Dazzler..;

Do think railway could have a much greater impact on personal transport than what it it does though. Edison may be right if we look further into the future. I find it hard to believe it will be sustainable to continue driving motor cars.

Railway should have a much bigger role to play even now for the transport of freight, certainly in our country, the use of B Doubles and talk of B Triples is alarming you only need to look at the accelerated deterioration of the roads since they allowed these monsters greater access. Don't misunderstand I know we need them on the road as this is the only effective currently way to transport our freight but the infrastructure that we call railway really needs looking at. (sorry don't mean to go on.. )

[agentr31]

we used to load rail cars up at my work... infact the rail load out bays are still in use and have railway line in the yard under them... but the government shut the line down http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkenba_railway_station,_Brisbane

we still load containers for rail transport... just they get loaded on trucks, then transported to the rail facilities by trucks...

[Surferdude]

According to Peter F Hamilton, railways are the future - even travelling through wormholes.

[Dazzler]

I just did the exercise of working out annual road fatalities per capita (head of population) using estimates from this site..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population

The higher the number in the 4th column the better... Surprising results in some cases.. (let me know if I stuffed up the calculations  )

Country    Annual Road Deaths        2010 Pop estimate        Number of people per annual road deaths
India        109,721                         1,187,130,000                           10,819
China        94,328                          1,339,270,000                           14,198
USA          43,242                            310,152,000                             7,172
Brazil         35,987                           193,453,000                              5,375
Russia       33,808                            141,927,297                             4.198
Iran           23,497                              75,078,000                            3,195
Australia      1,464                              22,446,272                           15,363

The number of cars o the road per head of pop would go some way to explaining the figure in China I imagine.. (and maybe India too)