Everyone Has ‘Car Brain’

meh.
Humans will likely have a 100-percent mortality rate, even in a dark future where individuals would be arrested for the crime of attmepting to operate their privately owned conveyance.

Before cars, it was horse-drawn carriages. (Ask Marie Curie.)
Trains were notoriously dangerous before they were supplanted by automobiles. Train travel was quite safe in the first half century of the 1800s because they didn't go very fast and there weren't many miles of track laid down. But train wrecks were shockingly common in the last half of the 1800s.
Ships and aircraft also went through turbulent periods of safety development.

Circle of life.

My thinking is that cars will continue to be MORE safe even while drivers become less so....or at least that's what people who juggle the numbers will tell us.

Even NOW we have a dizzying number of safety devices that are too numerous to name AND more and more active safety devices are being added at an increasingly accelerated pace - all developed by the same thing:
Human Blood.

 

Cars provide convenience. It’s reassuring knowing that I can get roughly anywhere in the greater metropolitan area in under an hour from where I live at any time, rather than needing to walk for potentially several hours or even take public transportation that is only available during certain times and takes double or triple the time it would take in my own car.

Yes, cars are dangerous. And they are more expensive than walking or local public transit. But that convenience factor is huge. When my catalytic converter got stolen in 2020, I figured out a cost comparison between having a car and only using public transit. And for me, the loss of opportunity cost from not having a car was greater than the extra cost of car ownership over public transit.

There are plenty of people who advocate for pedestrian friendly cities, where people don’t need cars. But I don’t live in one of those, and until I do, it’s more worthwhile to have a car than to go with another option.

All this does not mean I have anything against pedestrians. But in cities that are currently designed with cars in mind, driving a car is going to be the easiest and most common way to get from place to place.

 

That's great for city slickers - and, being a libertarian, I'm content to let cities city.

For the minority (?) of folks who live in what is increasingly derided as 'flyover' country, cars seem to have fewer downsides.

 

the invention of the automobile was a deal with the devil. we are attracted to them from the moment we come out of the womb. especially males.
the solution is beyond our grasp. even elon musk recognizes this (and he's made more than a few deals)

 

I've lived in places with great public transport - urban Hong Kong (but not rural Hong Kong), Central Shanghai and Central London - where a car was more trouble than it was worth, so I didn't bother having one. Public transport was quicker and easier than driving.

But it doesn't take a lot to tip the situation into one where a car is useful, Where I lived in rural Hong Kong was a 30-minute drive from the centre of town. I'd commute by public transport for work, but we did need a car for things like grocery shopping. However, this was 15 years ago. These days, with online supermarkets, a car might be less necessary.

In Sydney, we live close to the centre of the city, and I use public transport for going to the city centre. But we have a very wheel-spoke-shaped public transport system: if I'm going anywhere other than the centre of the city, it's easier to drive.

 

Our daughter and son in law live in Manhattan. No car in the city, but they have one stashed for trips,
In my experience, the younger generations don’t seem as enamored with owning a car as their predecessors