I'm sure a large part of it is we're more spread out. My anecdotal refute to the compact car is: when I've been in europe and have to travel from country to co

I'm sure a large part of it is we're more spread out. My anecdotal refute to the compact car is: when I've been in europe and have to travel from country to country, I personally saw about the same ratio of "large cars" on the highways in europe as I do in the US. Obviously the pickup truck is basically non-existent, but otherwise the mix was about the same. Europeans don't seem anymore excited about taking what I'd call "city cars" on the highway than Americans are. That being said: I think far more Europeans can spend almost all their time in their local city and don't NEED to get on a highway with large trucks and vehicles. In the US that's basically unheard of unless you're in a large city. I'm sure during holiday the roads look quite different than a regular workday. I'm guessing if you compared New York to most of Europe you'd see similar numbers, public transit and city layout in the rest of the US basically makes that impossible.