I don't personally like driving and I don't have a valid driver's license. I think it makes me feel ashamed because it's such a normalized thing.
Not wanting or being able to drive isn't easy in a society where driving is practically mandated. The auto-centric American lifestyle can leave you feeling ashamed or less of a person for simply not being a driver.
Can you imagine life without cars?
A hundred years ago, cars were just a play thing for the wealthy. But visionaries like Henry Ford sought to transform them into a commodity accessible to everyday working people. And so he did with the Model T. In 1900, there were only 8,000 vehicles registered in this whole country. The Model T released in 1908, by 1915, we had over 2 million.
Within a generation, automobiles went from novelty to necessity.
In many ways, the social impacts have solidified car culture as much as the technical advances. Think about it:
Cars are interwoven into our very infrastructure and identity. We've paved over millions of miles of roads to make way for four-wheeled travel. Our communities are designed around traffic, commutes and parking lots. Highways, drive-thru's, repair shops, gas stations - they're all an essential part of the human ecosystem. Entire generations embraced car ownership as essential mobility.
Imagine relying on a mystical teleporter to rearrange your atoms across space without ever bothering to understand quantum entanglement principles. It sounds dicey, right? Yet the majority of people essentially treat cars like magic mobility boxes, oblivious to the workings under the hood. To most car owners, it might as well be sorcery... They just pump in dino juice and zip through spacetime like wizards. It's so easy, they never have to pause to grasp the beautifully orchestrated physics propelling them.
This knowledge gap impacts our relationship with cars and mobility at a deep level. Vehicles feel like mystical extensions of our agency. That illusion of effortless translocation changes expectations and perceptions of distance.
We forget the billions of hours of research and development enabling such freedom of movement. We forget about the complex supply chains extracting resources worldwide to assemble our modern mobility machines.
It may seem harmless, but thoughtlessly offloading understanding makes us more susceptible to disinformation or sales tactics. And we underestimate the immense human ingenuity built into every wheel rotation.
Don't forget the classic tropes, like making out in the backseat at a drive-in movie! Cars have been part of the fabric of relationships and family life for decades now.
For many, getting a first car represents a rite of passage into adulthood. Pop culture celebrates hot rods and road trips as quintessentially American. Our economic fortunes rose with automotive manufacturing. Meanwhile, public transport, cycling, and pedestrian zones are on the decline.
With deep cultural integration like that, it's no surprise cars feel like an extension of our identity and convenience. The pros viscerally outweigh the abstract statistical cons for many.
The fact is, many people share my feelings about driving, for a wide array of reasons. Some simply prefer biking, walking or public transit. Others cannot afford vehicles. Many with disabilities or impairments cannot operate cars safely. And concerns over climate change and safety have made driving unappealing for some. With ride sharing apps like Lyft and Uber becoming more popular and progress in efforts towards perfecting autonomous vehicles, I think the we're living at a pivotal moment where we need to evolve beyond auto-centric infrastructure and policies and make better transportation choices.
All of this is just to say that our worth isn't determined by whether we conform to mainstream social customs. And the choice to drive should be just that - a choice - not an imposed expectation. We may get there through economics and ethics aligning around sustainable transit. But it's a winding road. For now, America still has one foot on the gas pedal.
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