12/84Percentage of U.S. car owners who keep maps in their glove compartments: 50
9/84Cost to consumers of “protecting” one job in the automobile industry via import restrictions: $85,400
9/84Average yearly wages of an American auto worker: $23,566
4/85Rank of cruise control among options new car buyers desire most: 1
6/85Percentage of Americans who say they would rather have a tooth pulled than take a car in for repairs: 20
6/85Cost of having a car blessed at the Daishi Buddhist temple in Kawasaki, Japan: $10.77
6/85Cost of a car wash at Steve’s Detailing in New York City: $145
Percentage who say the automobile is: 10
2/86Number of the three best-selling automobiles in 1985 that were pickup trucks: 2
4/87Percentage of American car buyers who say they enjoy haggling with the dealer over price: 32
10/88Percentage of Americans who favor random car searches by police as a way of dealing with the drug problem: 54
10/88Portion of all land in downtown Los Angeles that is used for driving, parking, or servicing cars: 2/3
2/88Percentage increase in fatalities on rural interstates where the speed limit was raised last year: 46
4/88Percentage of Japanese cars sold in America last year that were manufactured here: 18
Percentage of cars sold in America by Chrysler last year that were manufactured overseas: 12
6/88Number of years it takes the average American car to produce its own weight in carbon: 1
9/88Members of Loners on Wheels, a recreational-vehicle singles club: 3,025
9/88Amount Ravalli County, Montana, fined itself after one of its truck drivers committed a loading violation: $350
3/89Rank of drugs, kidnapping, and car accidents, among the dangers to children most feared by parents: 1,2,3
3/89Price of equipping a car with a pair of onion-gas spray guns, from Labock Industries in Tel Aviv: $960
4/89Percentage of Americans who say “a good car mechanic is worth as much as a member of Congress”: 40
7/89Number of FAA-certified pilots whose driver’s licenses have been revoked or suspended due to drunk driving: 10,300
10/90Number of times Marion Barry used his car phone to call alleged drug connections during the last four years: 2,312
12/90Members of the Christian Motorcyclists Association: 33,805
12/90Amount the U.S. government lent Brazil last year to build a highway through the Amazon rain forest: $20,000,000
2/90Estimated total amount convicted drug traffickers in the United States owe in criminal fines: $108,000,000
Total amount New York City drivers owe in parking fines: $461,000,000
5/90Average ratio of a CEO’s salary to that of a blue-collar worker at major Japanese automobile manufacturers: 20:1
Average ratio at major US. automobile manufacturers: 192:1
6/90Change, since 1988, in the fuel efficiency of new automobiles sold in the United States, in miles per gallon: -0.5
6/90Percentage of Southern California drivers who say they have made “indecent gestures” at other drivers: 38
8/90Number of automobiles that have been discarded in the United States since 1946: 288,324,898
9/90Maximum amount a Los Angeles taxi company can be fined if its drivers are found wearing anything plaid: $1,500
2/91Convicted drunk drivers in Orange County, California, since 1988, whose sentence included a tour of the morgue: 569
Number of repeat offenders among them: 1
2/91Projected average speed of cars on California’s highways in the year 2010, in miles per hour: 11
1/92Number of members of the Cossacks, a Moscow motorcycle gang: 8
Number of motorcycles they own: 1
4/92Chances that a Japanese carsold in the United States was manufactured in the United States: 2 in 5
12/93Chances that a pedestrian killed by an automobile in the United States last year was drunk: 1 in 3
4/93Number of Porsches pawned last year at Collateral Lender of Beverly Hills: 21
6/93Ratio of the emissions produced by a car driven 50 miles to those produced by a lawn mower in one hour: 1:1
9/93Maximum number of feet at which a car stereo may legally be audible in Fort Wayne, Indiana, as of June: 30
11/94Percentage of American women who say their car is “more reliable” than most men they know: 49
11/94Ratio of the number of miles driven by the Japanese to the number of miles they ride on trains each year: 2:1
11/94Tons of carbon dioxide produced by one U.S. automobile in its lifetime: 42
11/94Pieces of undelivered mail found in the trunk of a car belonging to a Chicago postman last spring: 3,000
3/94Chances that a fatal accident involving a passenger car and a large truck will kill the truck driver: 1 in 50
12/95Number of California driver’s licenses made out to Jesus Christ: 6
Number made out to Jesus Christ II: 1
5/95Average amount spent on the tires used by each car during the Indianapolis 500: $11,648
Maximum average speed in miles per hour that Manhattan’s traffic commissioner believes is achievable: 9
11/96Year in which Barbara Bush was named “First Lady of the Century” by Outlaw Biker magazine: 1995
9/96Number of radio stations that offered Chelsea Clinton a car for her sixteenth birthday last February: 3
1/97Rank of Aries among the astrological signs of people most likely to be in an automobile accident: 1
Percentage today: 13
Number where the population’s poorest fifth pays the largest portion of income in sales, property, and income taxes: 40
Number of phone lines connected to her five car phones: 7
5/97Percentage change in Wyoming auto fatalities since the state raised the highway speed limit to 75 mph in 1995: -16
5/97Blood-alcohol level a driver would need in order to be as dangerous as a driver using a cellular phone: 0.1
1/98Ratio of miles of groomed snowmobile trails in Minnesota to miles of state highway: 3:2
7/98Ratio of pollution generated by a leaf blower in one hour to that generated by driving a car one hundred miles: 1:1
8/98Truckloads of nuclear waste the Department of Energy plans to begin driving to New Mexico for storage this year: 37,000
Number of highway accidents the DOE estimates these shipments will be involved in through the year 2033: 50
12/99Number of titles for “horseless carriages” issued to new car owners in Maine last spring due to a Y2K error: 2,000
4/99Miles per hour at which a New York TV station clocked a police van driving Mayor Rudolph Giuliani to lunch last year: 75
6/99Miles of U.S. highway that the Ku Klux Klan has applied to sponsor under state adopt-a-highway programs: 16.5
Miles that the group has been granted: 1
9/99Speed at which an Iowa state trooper clocked a car last July in which Pat Buchanan was on the phone with Oliver North: 66
2/00Percentage increase since 1994 in annual federal spending on highways and mass transit, respectively: 50, 33
3/00Factor by which average air-pollution levels inside a moving car on an L.A. highway exceed those outside the car: 10
11/01Prison sentence, in years, received in June by an Oregon activist for setting fire to a car dealership: 23
12/01Number of mimes Guatemala’s transit department hired last April to administer driver “education” at busy intersections: 20
7/01Estimated cost of fuel consumed in 1999 by U.S. drivers caught in traffic delays: $8,600,000,000
8/02Extra amount Oregon charges per year to register a hybrid gas/electric car in compensation for lost gasoline taxes: $15
6/03Number of motor vehicles owned by Tom Magliozzi, co-host of NPR’s Car Talk: 0
6/03Percentage change in central London’s average rush-hour car speed since a £5 toll was imposed there in February: +111
7/03Number of American states that have revoked helmet requirements for adult motorcycle riders since 1975: 30
8/03Percentage of pedestrian fatalities on U.S. roadways last year in which the driver was drunk: 18
Percentage in which the pedestrian was: 37
9/03Maximum number of miles that Ford’s most fuel-efficient 2003 car can drive on a gallon of gas: 36
10/04Date on which Turkmenistan added questions on the president’s spiritual writings to its driver’s-license test: 6/12/04
11/04Minimum number of Californians serving a life sentence for cheating on a driving exam: 1
2/04Number of times a Hummer H2 could be driven around the world on the excess calories Americans consume each year: 244
2/04Number of a Texas toddler’s burned fingers amputated in 1992 after she was left in a car with her mother’s lit cigarette: 9.5
Settlement Philip Morris paid the girl’s family last May: $2,000,000
6/04Number of accidents on Florida highways in 2002 caused by cars parked on the side of the road: 4,220
Estimated percentage that were subsequently foamed to death: 100
6/05Amount for which George W. Bush successfully sued Enterprise Rent-A-Car in 1999: $2,500
3/06Amount paid last fall for a Ford Escort driven by Pope John Paul II: $680,000
4/06Price for which companies can purchase the personal data of all Minnesota drivers’-license holders from the state: $1,500
Estimated number that have bought the data so far: 800
10/07Amount that poor roads cost Americans in repairs and other extra operating costs each year: $67,000,000,000
Last year there was a decrease: 1980
10/08Estimated number of U.S. lives saved per month by $4 gasoline, through reduced driving nationwide: 1,000
3/08Number of South Koreans who work as on-call “replacement drivers” for customers too drunk to drive home: 83,000
Estimated number of customers they serve each day: 700,000
7/08Average percentage by which a bar-smoking ban in a U.S. county increases the rate of drunk-driving fatalities: 13
8/08Percentage of U.S. homeowners who reported last year that they had bought a car using a home-equity loan: 27
9/08Minutes that Minneapolis drivers can legally idle while not in traffic, per a new city ordinance: 3
9/08Number of North Carolina license plates issued last year that begin with the letters “WTF”: 8,999