The US has more cars & light trucks per 1000 people than any other significant country.
As usual, your post is well informed, but I have to point out that the number of vehicles per capita is not a worthy metric for comparison. The reason is that much of the US affords little to no public transportation options and our residence/work areas are spread out such that a vehicle is sometimes a necessity and almost always a higher priority in the US than other countries. So depending on your economic position, car ownership could well be more of an economic hardship for the owner rather than an indication of wealth.
When I was in college and participating in cooperative education (working for Georgia Power), securing reliable transportation to the nuclear plant (located out in bum-f*ck, GA) was a serious challenge. I could not afford a car that was new enough to be reliable. I did all repairs myself, but predicting the failures left me on the highway more than a couple of times. I bought several cars in the $400 price range over those years. The total of those (maybe 4 ea.) $400 cars would have easily bought one reliable $1600 car, but I never had enough money at any one time to be able to do that. I was being careful with my money, but I knew how much I needed saved for college and especially senior year when co-op employment had stopped!
Honestly, in most jobs, I probably would have been fired because of attendance (due to car failures). My supervisors liked me and could afford to be understanding because my tasks were not critical to the plant, and the co-op program was recognized as more of a means of grooming future employees than having to pay for itself! But if I worked production, any business would have fired me!
My senior year, I sold my car to be able to pay for the second semester of school. I was living 2.25 miles from school for $125/month rent and road my bike into school rain or shine (but still needed to bum a ride with one of my roommates if it was icy - I had a late class which made them have to wait for me to get out, so this was only when the weather forced it). The last month, my budget was $0.62/day for food - boxes of generic Macaroni & cheese were my main food staple and I would splurge and add a sliced hot dog every fourth box. I never felt like a victim of my circumstances. It was a game of sorts and even a little fun to see how cheaply I could live. Many would say that is a testimony to my character, but honestly, I think knowing it was a temporary situation (until I graduated and started work full time) is what allowed me to take it in stride. I also knew friends of my deceased dad who would have probably loaned me the money to get through my last semester if an unexpected expense had come up (like if my bike had been stolen), so I was relieved of that type of stress.
Sorry about the discourse, but I think it is good to share such experiences, because there are far too many who would superficially look at my car buying history during that time and conclude I was an idiot for buying POS car after POS car when in the end I spent enough money to get a nice car. I was very aware of my budget and simply did not have the option to "do it right"!
Understand that I do not mean this to be a refutation of your overall post. I picked that one statement out of many good ones. I just wanted to do the reality check that having more cars per capita in the USA compared to he rest of the world is analogous to having more snowshoes per capita in Alaska than the lower 48!
