zlacker

The cultural aspect is so, so huge and as a person unable to drive due to my visual disability I’ve felt it very acutely ever since I was a teenager.

Getting your first car is/was essentially a rite of passage into adulthood, not just a way to get around. All the movies and ads told you that. Pick a girl up to take her somewhere? Nope, can’t do that. Are you even dateable if you can’t drive? Watching all your friends get their license and feeling like you missed out on graduating to adulthood? It’s painful. Want to use buses and trains? That’s cool but be careful of all those ‘bad people’ that want to rob you and don’t travel too late at night or too early in the morning, it’s unsafe!

A car is a symbol of freedom, independence and safety for many people. Freedom to roam about wherever you want, whenever you want as you please, without having to rely on your parents. I don’t blame anyone for thinking this way, it’s what we’ve been fed by culture for as long as I can remember.

Not that these perceptions are accurate when I look back on it, they’re as much to do with my own insecurity as a disabled person as they are to do with general society. It’s nice to know that this isn’t a thing everywhere in the world.

FWIW I don’t hate cars (I think I’m as much of a fan as anyone that grew up with gear-head mates) and over the years I’ve come to terms with never driving and quite like the financial convenience of not owning a car, but still. As others here have alluded to, giving up cars is a huge societal zeitgeist change, not just a change to do with infrastructure.

>>Fr0sty+(OP)
This is very well said. Just as a fan of fast cars and classics, I appreciate being able to talk the ins and outs with people who are also so inclined. Many of whom are not really into driving, and more into the beauty of the machines. Yes, they're also a teenage symbol of "freedom" - I grew up in LA in the 80s-90s, where rich kids had expensive cars, but cool kids had hot rods or souped up rice rockets. It wasn't just mobility, it was your most expensive and treasured possession. But it's actually a pretty false, limited type of freedom, as I realized when I grew up, sold my Camaro and left the States for 12 years. That sense of freedom from your parents turns out to be a few road trips in your life. It's not like you can just drive down to Patagonia (unless you want to court imminent death a dozen times along the way). In any event, basically no one does it. So the freedom aspect is kinda bunk, like all the other freedoms Americans think they have but never actually test.

In terms of the pure pleasure of driving a difficult-to-drive, classic that I saved and restored from the scrapyard, with a hair trigger clutch, listening to every sound from the engine, I feel like I'm probably one of the only people I know who enjoys doing it every day. But it's driving as an art, just like fixing cars is an art. I think that's the true value of the car culture, not the commercial patina of "freedom" sold with every lease.