Comments on: A quick picture of the American way

By: Srewolf

Srewolf — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 16:04:25 +0000

Oh, by the way, Hawaii’s statehood was then also, but they could make the claim that those other bits of the US aren’t large enough to show on a map of this scale. And then there are the territories, which is clearly getting too picky for the purpose of this ad.

I remember the statehood of Alaska and Hawaii being a big deal at the time, and I was just a kid of 7. You’d think the grown-ups who were involved in making this ad would have included them.

Any idea on what the truck ratio is today?

By: Srewolf

Srewolf — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 15:54:01 +0000

Curious that Alaska is not included as part of the US. Statehood was approved by congress in June 1958, and became official in Jan 1959.

By: Blurgle

Blurgle — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 06:54:26 +0000

The thing is, those lost days never really existed except in the collective mindset of Americans, who assume they’ve always been the most important country on Earth. At least once a month I encounter some guy on the Internet who is convinced beyond any reasoning that everyone on Earth is just panting to become an American, and America is the only country with “freedom”. They’re shocked (and generally disbelieving) when I tell them that nobody I know wants to be American, and in fact many of the immigrants I’ve met deliberately chose not to immigrate to the US for specific reasons. They always assume I’m being “bigoted” or “anti-American”.

The US having 46% of all trucks is an interesting piece of trivia, but given that most countries are smaller in area and don’t need as many trucks per capita (and are also more likely to use rail and water to transport cargo) it doesn’t say much about economic might as much as it does about the physical size of the country and the distances between cities. You need more trucks to haul goods between Kansas City and Mobile than you do between Hamburg and Kiel, simply because you can make 12 round trips in one day between Hamburg and Kiel, but less than one round trip per day between Kansas City and Mobile.

By: Rick Auricchio

Rick Auricchio — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 21:39:17 +0000

I suppose after forty years the US percentage of worldwide trucks has changed.

It appears, however, that they’re showing 46% of the total truck to show the US portion. The shape of the truck makes it very difficult to see 46% vs 100%. Sorta the world’s worst pie chart.