I’m 25 and I don’t have a drivers license. I mean, I’ve never really felt the need to go and get one. Public transport is usually the fastest option where I live, and it takes a lot less responsibility to use it.
But most people would still prefer driving, rather than using the public T. Why?
As the simplest catch all to your question:
People prefer cars when they do not have access to adequate public transit.
If the transit is unsafe, untimely, or unsanitary, then it is not adequate. I live in an area of the US with a robust transit system comparatively and even it isn’t adequate. You don’t need a car to get pretty much anywhere but the travel times are at a minimum 2x due to how sparsely things are scheduled off peak times. They’re a bit closer during peak times though.
I honestly miss the free time I had while taking the buses and trains to read news or play games, but since work requires quite a hefty list of materials, and can randomly shift during a day, I need the mobility of a personal vehicle these days.
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If I want to go somewhere in a car, I get in my car and go there.
If I want to go somewhere using public transport, I have to walk to the nearest stop, wait for the transport to arrive, wait in the transport to take an inefficient route to the closest stop to the destination, then walk from the stop to the destination.
Basically, a 10 minute drive becomes an hour long ordeal.
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Do you ride a bike?
I do! I’m an avid cyclist and ride whenever I can.
I dislike other people and would prefer to not interact with them if I don’t have to.
From a guy who takes the bus all the time.
Yes I prefer cars over buses, why? More freedom For getting around
Well, as someone who has lived in Europe half my life and the good old US of A the other half, I’d argue that people don’t prefer cars over public transit in general. America has a super strong car culture, and we could blame American’s for this problem, and we could also be tempted to say that America isn’t dense enough to have good cheap national public transit, but we had the best public transit in many ways leading up to world War 2 (good video on the topic: https://youtu.be/-cjfTG8DbwA ). In reality, with urbanization, lobbying, and the status/convenience cars just made a lot of sense. Plus, flexible passenger- and cargo-carrying capacities are a huge plus for cars all on your own schedule. Even, in great public transit cities people who can afford a car and the associated fee to drive it, largely will do so, since it just gives you the greatest amount of options to get around.
I live in a city with excellent public transport and use it a lot, but a car is total freedom. You can go exactly where you want, and stop anywhere on the way. Even with great public transport you can’t beat it.
Public transport is usually the fastest option where I live, and it takes a lot less responsibility to use it.
This is… not true in a lot of places.
Austin, TX. Takes me maybe half an hour to get across town in my car. Would take me two hours and three transfers to do the same by bus. Not saying the bus is bad by any means, just that the infrastructure isn’t built for public transport.
Depends where you live to be honest. Here in the Netherlands everyone i know, and this is not an exaggeration, prefers to travel by public transport when it’s available instead of car, or by bike for smaller distances. They would only use a car if they need to go somewhere far away that’s not very accessible by public transport. But even then you have busses that go in every small rural town, although they are not as frequent and I believe a lot of times they do not go on weekends.
Personally, I have also never felt the need to get a car and I will always pick public transport over car. It’s cheap, convenient, fast and reliable. But if there is no other alternative then you don’t have a choice.
One last thing i would like to mention is that I see a lot of people in this thread, but also in general, that they say they prefer a car because it’s faster. The thing is, that if you get stuck in a traffic jam, with all the other like minded people, then it’s not faster at all.
Public transit is the slowest option everywhere I’ve lived(cities from 5k to 500k population).
Disturbed people, smelly people, loud music, unwelcome conversation, fights, and urine/food/filth on the seating has also made public transit a last resort for me.
Driving and all it’s privileges is an absolute pleasure when you don’t live in too big a city.
Speaking from a US standpoint, the public transit sucks. The main issue where I’m at is lack of bus stops, and the bus is never on time. I’d have to walk down a highway (not interstate) to get to the bus stop, then it might not even arrive on time.
Cars are faster, most of the time. However, they still suck. Traffic in dense areas is heavy at almost all times of day where anyone is active. It’s really a failure on the US government why people dont take public transit as much.
There are no buses where I live. The nearest light rail stop is 12 miles away. Several times I’ve made plans to go to a party at someone’s house, which would take half an hour by car, or one and a half to two hours using public transport.
When I do take public transport, sometimes it’s standing room only, too many people put their filthy shoes on the seat, people cough and sneeze and specially during the pandemic didn’t mask up.
If you live anywhere outside of the inner city, public transport gets slow really quick.
Very much depends on the country you’re in too though. I live in a 1000 people village and “bus to nearest train station -> train(s) -> bus to destination” beats car in terms of speed as soon as my destination is more than ca 30km away.
Reaching the nearest grocery stores takes about 10 minutes by car (incl. finding a parking spot) and 15 by bus, so it’s not a huge difference either.
It is a huge decrease in flexibility though. The busses will only drive every 30 minutes or 1 hour, depending on the time of day.
It’s tough… I enjoy biking places when I have the time and the weather permits, but most of the time a vehicle is the way to go in my neck of the woods at least.
I need to transport a bunch of tools with me so driving to work is required but if I didn’t then I’d probably invest in an e-bike and use that most of the time to commute (need an e-bike to handle the winter paths here) instead of public transport. Where I am the car is super hard to beat most of the time though, and most people aren’t willing to brave the elements or own and store an e-bike as the alternative.
Let me use my commute to work as an example:
The walk is too long (a bit over an hour) and you’re in the elements the whole time, and forget about getting groceries or something on the way home from work. Biking would take about 20-25 mins but now I’m still exposed to the elements and have a similar limited carrying capacity as with walking, and will need to invest the couple of thousand in an e-bike (let’s hope it doesn’t get stolen while it’s locked up outside) to manage the winter paths. Public buses take about 45 mins (the schedules line up for my path to work, otherwise it’s twice as long), cost about the same as the fuel/maintenance on a vehicle ($3/trip), I need to be dressed to stand/walk in the elements for much longer than driving, and if I’m running 5 mins late I can end up being an hour late (gotta wait for the next bus) instead of just 5 mins, never mind turning back if I forgot something etc… I only ever use the bus when my vehicle is in for repairs and it’s either pouring rain or winter, otherwise the bike beats it every time.
I live in San Francisco, so decent public transportation. But even then, it doesn’t run 24 hours. If you want late night fast food, unless you live in NYC, you either need a car or get to pay absurd prices for door dash to deliver cold food.
