I know the demographics around here, so I know everyone’s just going to put “nothing lol”, but please understand what I’m asking first.
I’m physically incapable of driving a car. I stand to gain immeasurably from a world that didn’t assume everyone owned one. Having loved-ones with respiratory issues aggravated by car exhaust has made me very aware of the health issues surrounding the burning of fossil fuels, and having to navigate sidewalkless suburban stroads on a regular basis and juggle poorly funded public transit has made it very clear to me that pedestrians are second class citizens. I could go on and on about the mess cars have made of urban planning, and the number of jobs I couldn’t take because they required driving, but I digress.
In short, I hate cars just as much as the rest of you. But I’m also conscious that a lot of other people feel differently. What does widespread car ownership enable that would be difficult or impossible otherwise?
As an American I’m familiar with the cultural aura that surrounds the automobile. One of the early episodes of Mythbusters explained this pretty well while digging into the folklore surrounding a particular car-related urban legend. Cars represent freedom and self determination, two qualities highly prized in American society. You can go where you want when you want, without relying on schedules and routes mandated by public transit[1].
Looking at more tangible things, I suppose hauling a bunch of stuff from point A to point B would be hard without a car.
But what else am I missing?
Ignoring the fact you can only go where there are roads, and someone has to build and maintain those roads. ↩︎
The car-centric culture of many places (especially the US, but it does apply in basically all of the industrialised world to varying degrees) is due to infrastructural factors. If a country is designed to be navigated by car, then you need a car to participate in that society. That’s why people want cars.
Things like the freedom of having a car are also from social factors. A lot of people learn to drive as teenagers, and want to escape the patriarchal environment of the family, hence a car provides freedom. In a world where children are socially raised and the family is abolished, teenagers don’t seek to escape from the family. And, of course, a car can be a way of providing freedom because other means of freedom of movement don’t exist—a lack of accommodation for disabled people to get around, a lack of public transport and safe cycle routes, etc.
Most people wouldn’t want to give up their car for those reasons. If we just got rid of all cars without addressing any of these issues, I’m sure most people would be unhappy about it. So if that’s what you’re suggesting, plenty of people do stand to lose. But if we address the issues that make cars the only option for a lot of people, I don’t think the average person would care. Car enthusiasts can still have their cars, but it becomes a hobby or lifestyle choice, like people who have a boat. And car haters would most certainly be a lot happier too.