This lifestyle is not unique to the US, but the big, inefficient car thing seems to be. South Africa is on a similar scale to the US and probably much more moun

This lifestyle is not unique to the US, but the big, inefficient car thing seems to be. South Africa is on a similar scale to the US and probably much more mountainous in general. Yet most of the cars there are European sized. And it's not just because they can't afford bigger ones; many of them can. It just seems that if they are going to choose one vehicle they choose the one that makes sense for every day of the week, not the few times a year they drive for 8 hours across multiple mountain ranges. I live in the UK and I'd been told by Americans "you just don't understand" many times. But I can tell you now that it's perfectly fine to make day long road trips across mountain ranges in something like a VW Golf. You don't need a 3L+ monstrosity.