More bikes than cars

[tele]

Interesting report of bike sales outpacing car sales in Europe:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2013/10/24/240493422/in-most-every-european-country-bikes-are-outselling-cars

[Mark McM]

The data in the article needs more clarification to have any meaning. What types of bikes? What counts as a 'car'?

For example, based on simple numbers, bicycles have always outsold cars in the US. According to the NBDA (http://nbda.com/articles/industry-overview-2012-pg34.htm), there were 18.7 million bicycles sold in the US in 2012, but according to the National Auto Dealers Association (http://www.nada.org/NR/rdonlyres/1B512AC7-DCFC-472C-A854-6F5527931A2F/0/2013_NADA_Data_102113.pdf), there were only about 7.23 million cars sold in 2012. In other words, there were more than twice as many bicycles sold than cars.

You have to break down the numbers a little better to get the real story. For example, in addition to the 7.23 million cars sold in the US, there were an additiona 7.13 light trucks sold. Many people use there light trucks as their personal transportation, so the number of motor vehicles is many more than 7.23 million. In the bicycle category, many of the bicycles were childrens bicycles, with only 13 million having wheels of 20" or larger.

In other words, total sales don't tell the whole story.

[Tin Turtle]

Well for sure I own more bikes than cars :cool: