Driving Vs Shipping

In some cases, if done on a strict budget, driving your car home from school can be less expensive

. Although at what cost? Lets take our good friend Blake for example. Blake ships his car with a carrier company quite frequently between his home in Orlando, Fl to UCSD here in San Diego, Ca. We asked Blake approximately how much he would spend when driving. "Well of course gas was the primary cost for the trip. Depending on the cost of fuel at the time, I would average spending around $300 to $400 one way. Food would be another $100 to $150 and motels another $100 to $150. Then there is always the unplanned costs like flat tires, speeding tickets, windshield wipers, etc that, on average, would tack on another $50 to $100. So all-in-all I would end up spending roughly $550 to $800 one way." Now comparing those numbers with Blake"s past 6 shipments an auto shipping company which ranged from $700 to $950, we can see that it may be slightly cheaper to drive rather than ship. So why does Blake decide to ship? That"s a good question, and it"s just the one we asked him. "I choose to ship my car mainly because I value my time. I may spend a few hundred dollars more to have my car shipped but I also get a few more days to spend with my family and a few more days to get ready for the next semester. So it makes sense for me."

Timeframe for Shipping vs. Driving

Shipping your car typically takes a few days longer than driving. However, you"re not doing the driving. So does it really matter? We asked Blake how long it typically took him to drive from Orlando to San Diego. "In winter it would take longer as I would drive more cautiously. and when the weather was good, I could get home pretty fast. So between 3-6 days on average." When Blake shipped his car with an auto shipping company, his transport times ranged from 6-9 days. So driving, in most cases, would seem to be 10% to 20% faster than transporting. We asked Blake, since it normally takes a bit longer to transport his car rather than to drive straight through, why he now ops for shipping over driving? " Again this is a no brainer for me. Yes it does normally take a day or few longer than when I drive, but for me it doesn"t really matter. Once my car is picked up, I jump on a plane and am home or back to school that same day. Then all I have to do is wait for my car to arrive and I get to use that extra time to spend with the family or get ready for classes. If I really need a vehicle, I can usually just borrow one until my car arrives."

Safety of Shipping vs. Driving

In regards to safety, we found that auto transport tends to be much safer than driving. In the US, there are an average 6.5 million auto accidents per year, with a 46% injury rate. This translates to around one crash every 4.8 seconds. Those are outrageous numbers! If you consider the amount of time you"re on the road, going back or heading home from school, your chances for a fender bender increase every mile. You also have to worry about the other hazards of driving, like theft, major breakdown, etc. We asked Blake if safety was a concern for him when he drove and if his safety concerns played a part in deciding to use auto transport over driving: "Well I never really thought about getting in an accident, having my car stolen, or anything like that. It also really didn"t play a part in my decision to use auto transport over driving. However, these are things that you never really think about until they have already happened. So, Im grateful I never ran into any major problems the few times I did drive and it"s great to now have peace of mind when shipping my car. It"s icing on the cake."

So as you can see from Blake"s situation, auto transport may cost slightly more and take slightly longer, but some may find this extra cost and time to be easily offset when considering the increased safety and peace of mind that comes along with shipping your vehicle.

by: Nathan Hunt

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