I think they/we value personal freedom, but in a different way, especially in well designed cities/countries. Being able to get into a train/bus and arrive to destination without the hassle of searching for parking, being concentrated on road, avoid drinking alcohol, and spending a s** ton of money on buying car and fuel and taxes for them, like all this adds up and freedom of movement by car takes other freedoms from the people. Also it's interesting that americans value their freedom of movement so much but bike optimised infra is almost nonexistent and bikes are even more "pro freedom" since you don't need to take exams, register the bike, pay for fuel, you can usually drink some alcohol no problem and in case of ebikes you can charge them at home and ebikes can cover big distances as well but still, US is designed for cars&big cars only