Europe vs USA - why European men are much more attractive.

@SW-User it sure is diet and the media which is constantly showing who make serve you thr biggest meal the cheapest and how tasty it is. Exactly there are very few drive thru. Breakfast in Europe is far more healthier.

@SW-User Yes - where I live, using a car, even though you could walk, or could ride your bike, would appear to be strange, or a sign of physical weakness. It might even give rise to concern. "Hey, why are you using your car? Something wrong with you?"

@helenS People drive their cars 100 metres from one parking lot to the next when they're shopping here, it blows my mind.

@SW-User most US communities are devoid of safe walking space and public transportation, so we are stuck. There is a rise in automobile-bike collisions with deaths of the biker, so that isn't a good answer in the US. Many US people are not exercising enough. Personally, I have a treadmill and elliptical in my basement and use them, religiously, every day.

@samueltyler2 Some European cities (Copenhagen for example) have started fighting against the domination of urban culture by automobile traffic. I fully support this.

@helenS NY is trying all sorts of experiments. Unfortunately, the more they try to make bike lanes available, the more deaths we seem to find reported.

@samueltyler2 These are horrible news. I think the only means that would really help are: [u]hard[/u] speed limits (using bollards if necessary), and removing almost all public parking lots along the streets (replacing them by trees). How come people who own a car are allowed to simply park it (their [u]private[/u] property) in [u]public[/u] places? Children have almost disappeared in the streets, and cars are everywhere, killing people. It's so sad. (Yes I hate cars)

@helenS In NY there are very few on street parking spaces. They are starting a congestion fee system to try to decrease traffic. We go in by bus as much as possible, today though, we go by car, since the theater lets out so late that taking a bus home would end up with us not getting home until nearly 1 AM.

@samueltyler2 At least you guys have a working public transportation system over there!

@helenS very, very limited!

@helenS It's just a massive cultural difference, somewhat based on circumstance. I live in Copenhagen - and the distances to everything here is relatively small. That means biking is easy, and has thus become an easy, inexpensive and healthy mode of transportation. More people thus demand it, and more space is made for it.

The distances are often greater in the US. That also impacts the public transportation system because the needs for bus routes increases.

There's also the whole safety issue. It's not everywhere in the world you would feel safe letting your daughter, wife or friend go home on a bicycle at 3 am a saturday night.

@Lucia Maybe there's a general attitude towards "Why do it yourself? Let a machine do it for you."

@helenS Possibly. I'm not insightful enough about american culture to judge them on their drive to do good things for themself. So I try and stick to more objective reasons.

@Lucia To me, having a machine do something for me that I could do myself feels irritating. (The washing machine being an important exception... 😁)

@helenS There's loads of exceptions ;-) But the washing machine is a great example.

I for one value all sanitary installations a lot.