12/84Percentage of U.S. car owners who keep maps in their glove compartments: 50
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
12/86Percentage of the United States that is officially designated wilderness: 3.8
Percentage that is paved roads: 0.3
6/86Number of schools that have invited Lee Iacocca to speak at their graduations: 150
Number that have invited Mario Cuomo: 160
4/87Percentage of American car buyers who say they enjoy haggling with the dealer over price: 32
10/88Portion of all land in downtown Los Angeles that is used for driving, parking, or servicing cars: 2/3
6/88Percentage of students at Dunkin’ Donuts University who do not pass the six-week training course: 5
6/88Number of years it takes the average American car to produce its own weight in carbon: 1
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
4/89Percentage of Americans who say “a good car mechanic is worth as much as a member of Congress”: 40
Combined long-term corporate debt of General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler: $9,000,000,000
7/89Number of FAA-certified pilots whose driver’s licenses have been revoked or suspended due to drunk driving: 10,300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
2/90Percentage of American twenty-one-year-olds who can read a bus schedule: 20
6/90Number of shares of his Chrysler stock that Lee Iacocca has given away during the last 12 months: 100,000
6/90Percentage of Southern California drivers who say they have made “indecent gestures” at other drivers: 38
9/90Number of people who can be tested for radiation exposure in one day on France’s “hospital train”: 5,000
9/90Maximum amount a Los Angeles taxi company can be fined if its drivers are found wearing anything plaid: $1,500
2/91Projected average speed of cars on California’s highways in the year 2010, in miles per hour: 11
3/91Record time for the fastest dismantling, without power tools, of an automobile into salable parts, in minutes: 8.7
Amount for which a Florida hygiene teacher is suing Amtrak over a toilet that sprayed him with feces: $10,000
5/92Percentage of Americans who believe that U.S. cars built on Fridays have more mechanical problems: 40
3/93Ratio of the amount the Ford Motor Company spent last year on health care to the amount it spent on steel: 1:1
4/93Percentage of the parts in each new Chrysler Concorde, “the renaissance of the American car,” that are imported: 28
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
11/94Tons 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
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
7/95Estimated property damage caused in a New York suburb last spring by a man firing a slingshot from his Lincoln: $7,000
11/96Year in which Barbara Bush was named “First Lady of the Century” by Outlaw Biker magazine: 1995
1/97Rank of Aries among the astrological signs of people most likely to be in an automobile accident: 1
1/97Amount the U.S. spends on road construction and maintenance each day: $180,429,842
2/97Price paid at an Indiana auction last September for a 1975 Ford Escort previously owned by Pope John Paul II: $102,000
Number where the population’s poorest fifth pays the largest portion of income in sales, property, and income taxes: 40
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
5/98Cubic feet in the Navy’s F-18 Super Hornet jet that have been set aside for computer systems not yet developed: 17
5/98Percentage of Ford Explorer owners who have never taken their vehicle off-road: 87
5/98Number of consecutive hours that a Maryland man spent kissing a motorboat last winter in order to win it in a contest: 59
6/98Number of cars broken into by bears last year at Yosemite National Park: 889
7/98Ratio of pollution generated by a leaf blower in one hour to that generated by driving a car one hundred miles: 1:1
8/98Rank of Detroit, among the 20 largest U.S. cities, in municipal spending on public transportation: 20
8/98Minimum number of times per year that a car’s engine should be steam-cleaned, according to Martha Stewart: 1
8/98Ratio of highway spending Congress passed last May to the cost of gold-plating one lane of the U.S. interstate system: 2:1
9/98Ratio of miles of logging and other roads in U.S. national forests to the total length of the interstate highway system: 8:1
9/98Number of air-traffic controllers ordered to take a two-hour “refresher” course last spring: 10,000
9/98Number of times last June that air-traffic controllers lost track of the altitude or speed of Air Force I or II: 4
10/99Number of tires found along the Mississippi River since 1997 by an Illinois man bent on cleaning it: 1,916
11/99Number of months that a Christian group has trained a camera on Jerusalem’s Golden Gate, hoping to film Christ’s return: 7
12/99Number of titles for “horseless carriages” issued to new car owners in Maine last spring due to a Y2K error: 2,000
4/99Number of the Pentagon’s 9 Stealth bombers that have ever been deployed in combat: 0
4/99Number of federally maintained bridges of which the Department of Transportation has no record: 4,770
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
6/99Percentage change since 1990 in the number of U.S. traffic disputes in which one driver kills or injures another: +59
7/99Number of voice commands a Jaguar S-Type sedan understands: 44
1/00Miles that Leif Eriksson sailed from his father’s home in Greenland before “discovering” North America in 985: 230
1/00Number of the ten largest multinational corporations that produce automobiles or gasoline: 9
10/00Average number of miles by which the Concorde flies closer to the sun than other passenger planes: 4.7
11/00Percentage change since last May in the number of injuries caused by foot-powered scooters in the United States: +700
11/00Percentage of Americans killed by faulty auto parts in the 1990s who were killed by Firestone tires: 0.1
12/00Pounds of ordnance that can be delivered by Boeing’s new X-45A, the world’s first unmanned fighter jet: 3,000
12/00Number of planes crashed by the Wright brothers before their first successful flight on December 17, 1903: 1
2/00Percentage increase since 1994 in annual federal spending on highways and mass transit, respectively: 50, 33
2/00Ratio of the number of Americans killed in traffic accidents in 1998 to the number killed by medical errors: 1:1
3/00Factor by which average air-pollution levels inside a moving car on an L.A. highway exceed those outside the car: 10
3/00Number of states that introduced legislation forbidding discrimination against motorcylists last year: 8
3/00Number of people in North Carolina killed by automobiles since 1998 after lying in the middle of the road: 66
5/00Rank of traffic accidents among the leading causes of death for on-duty U.S. police officers last year: 1
8/00Percentage of national forestland unprotected under the President’s proposed ban on forest-road construction: 78
11/01Rank of gas mileage among the 35 things Americans say they look for in buying a new car or truck: 20
11/01Prison sentence, in years, received in June by an Oregon activist for setting fire to a car dealership: 23
4/01Gallons by which daily U.S. oil consumption would drop if SUVs’ average fuel efficiency increased by 3 mpg: 49,000,000
7/01Estimated cost of fuel consumed in 1999 by U.S. drivers caught in traffic delays: $8,600,000,000
1/02Number of mock biological attacks with live bacteria carried out domestically by the U.S. Army between 1949 and 1969: 199
Year in which the Army released bacteria into New York City’s subway system: 1966
10/02Number of traffic tickets issued in July by British Columbia police officers posing as squeegee men: 90
12/02Minutes that service on two New York subway lines was halted this fall after a Sikh worker was seen emerging from a hatch: 92
5/02Amount the World Bank has spent since 1992 on 212 projects to extract, transport, or burn fossil fuels: $20,800,000,000
Amount it has spent since then on its 30 projects involving renewable energy or energy efficiency: $900,000,000
5/02Number of Amtrak’s 41 routes other than the Boston-Washington, D.C., Metroliner that turn a profit: 0
Percentage change in Metroliner ridership since Amtrak added a new high-speed train to the route two years ago: -9
8/02Average amount by which the price a black American pays for a new car exceeds that paid by a white for the same model: $420
8/02Extra amount Oregon charges per year to register a hybrid gas/electric car in compensation for lost gasoline taxes: $15
8/02Number of round-trips to the sun represented by the world’s outstanding frequent-flyer miles: 42,500
Square feet of roads under construction in the occupied territories in the 1990s per settler: 185
6/03Number of motor vehicles owned by Tom Magliozzi, co-host of NPR’s Car Talk: 0
7/03Amount of the $106,185 price of a Hummer H1 that businesses may deduct under the proposed Bush tax plan: $88,722
8/03Ratio of the estimated number of people killed worldwide by war last year to the number killed by traffic: 1:4
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
10/04Date on which Turkmenistan added questions on the president’s spiritual writings to its driver’s-license test: 6/12/04
10/04Percentage of Mississippians who have failed their written driver’s-license test since it became computerized last year: 60
11/04Minimum number of Californians serving a life sentence for cheating on a driving exam: 1
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
Ratio of the average number of television sets to the number of children: 7:2
6/04Average number of people who die every day in Bombay commuter-train accidents: 10
12/05Amount a German company says it can save a cargo ship in annual fuel costs by outfitting it with a giant kite: $1,200,000
2/05Estimated percentage by which the number of automobiles made in Ontario last year exceeded the number made in Detroit: 4
2/05Average total cost for a U.S. eighty-year-old to live out the rest of his or her days on a luxury cruise ship: $230,497
Average cost to live them out in an assisted-living facility: $228,075
4/05Ratio of active workers at General Motors to retirees on its pension rolls: 2:5
6/05Amount for which George W. Bush successfully sued Enterprise Rent-A-Car in 1999: $2,500
6/05Portion of the world’s motor vehicles that are in China: 1/17
Portion of the world’s annual traffic fatalities that are: 1/5
7/05Percentage of U.S. auto travel that occurs on two-lane roads: 28
Percentage of traffic fatalities that do: 52
7/05Price for a set of six Harley Davidson ‒brand votive candles: $19.95
8/05Number of corpses shipped on Delta Air Lines last year: 42,175
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
7/08Average percentage by which a bar-smoking ban in a U.S. county increases the rate of drunk-driving fatalities: 13
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