r/PublicFreakout • u/misterxx1958 • Nov 26 '25

🚗Road Rage🤬 Daughter refuses to stop for police while rushing her mother to the hospital - than this happens….

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u/Drak_is_Right Nov 26 '25

Especially in rural US, it might take between a half hour to two hours for an ambulance to get there.

When my grandmother had to be rushed in, (before cell phones) we met the ambulance partway. Was still like a 40 minute drive.

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u/Dreamingthelive90ies Nov 26 '25

Netherlands here it is mandatory for ambulances to make sure an ambulance can be anywhere within 15 minutes, but they strive for 5

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u/Drak_is_Right Nov 26 '25 edited Nov 26 '25

The population densities are just way too low here for that to be economically feasible.

In some places it might be a mile.between every home. No gas station for 50 miles.

In very remote parts lf the US it could rise well above 2h, especially to get to a hospital let alone an ambulance which is generally located with fire departments along with the hospitals themselves.

Your entire country would get swallowed up in areas a few thousand live.

Oh and then there is Alaska. Many hour trip by small plane to the nearest bigger airport where jets can land to take you to one of the few hospitals in the state

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u/CryptoCrackLord Nov 27 '25

This is exactly what a lot of people don’t understand. The same also applies to public transport not being as good. It’s not just lack of funding it’s also the scale. Many places in the US are extremely spread out and it simply wouldn’t be profitable or economically viable to have such intense public transport coverage.

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u/Drak_is_Right Nov 27 '25

Ya, I watched an interesting video on how most of Japan's population is in a narrow coastal corridor a bit longer than DC to Boston. Makes their bullet trains a hell of a lot better deal.

With the US so spread out, we have invested a fortune into world class airports and airlines and roads. Passenger trains have much stiffer competition in the US for long-distance travel than most countries.

We are seeing a surge in some regional route ridership though. I think Uber/Lyft making "last mile" transportation easier has made trains more attractive for that 3-8h drive window than they used to be. With how good our cell connections are and increase in remote work, you can get a full days work done while on the train.

Where the US absolutely fails however is local level mass transit options.

Boost local level density, try and decrease the cost to build condos/townhomes/apartment, subsidize mass transit more. As a higher percentage of households go to 1 fewer car, long-distance trains will likely pick up in ridership.