[kwhitefoot]

Because they are a waste of space, money, and energy?

In over forty five years of driving I have never changed a wheel beside the road. I have had two punctures and one blowout in that time. The first two were close enough to home to just drive home slowly and then drive to the nearest tyre fitter for a replacement and the last happened at night on a narrow sloping country road where jacking up the car would have been impossible even if I had been willing to risk being run down on a road barely wide enough for two cars.

[utensil4778]

> tyre

Believe it or not, the UK is not the entire world.

In the US, we have vast stretches of highway with nothing in sight. You can pretty easily find yourself many miles away from the nearest town and with no cell service to call for help. If you get a flat in the middle of the actual desert we have, you're absolutely fucked without a spare. Your options are to wait and hope someone else drives by to offer help or just start walking. Maybe you'll find a gas station before you run out of water. Even in the more densely developed areas of the country you can find yourself stranded a long way between towns. It's happened to me twice before and it's not at all an uncommon story.

[lancesells]

I agree a spare is good to have but if I'm stuck in the desert without water I'll drive the car with a flat.

[kwhitefoot]

Goodness me, an American admitting that different places have different needs.

:-)

So how often do you find yourself in the middle of the desert? My experience of visiting the US is that the ordinary driver in the US doesn't venture out of the cities any more often than people in other parts of the world.

[riku_iki]

> Your options are to wait and hope someone else drives by to offer help or just start walking.

they also include patch and inflate kit for such cases?..

[vrighter]

My previous car came with one of those. It was utterly useless the one time I needed it. They're only good for tiny punctures. When someone left a piece of metal on the road which tore a gash in my tyre, no amount of anything could have patched it. I had to wait for someone to fetch me a spare tyre (luckily I wasn't that far from home)