For as long as I can remember I’ve always been someone who has taken public transport, or walked or cycled somewhere. I’ve never really had any urge to drive or buy a car. I suppose that is in part due to the fact that I’ve lived in a city for most of my life so everywhere I’ve wanted to go has been walking/cycling distance or I’ve had access to decent public transport. I plan to keep this up through university as it’s only a few kilometers from my house.
One thing has always gotten to me though. Why do so many people drive everywhere. I can understand driving if you’re going on a trip down the country, you live a good distance from your work, you have some sort of ailment or disability or time is a factor in getting where you need to go. But for most people these days work is a couple of kilometers away, only 15 or 20 minutes by foot or bike. Public transport is admittedly not the lap of luxury but it will get the job done and it is probably cheaper than running a car. So why do people drive?
Just from my own personal observations its a mixture of things. Laziness, stubbornness, control and lack of fitness:
- Laziness is the obvious one. People just think it’s easier to roll out of bed and into the car in the morning. It’s simple and no though is required. But making sure you get up on time to get your bus and waiting 10 minutes in the cold is just too much hassle for some. The same is said for biking. It requires to much effort to peddle in the morning.
- Stubbornness is next. People seem to be too entrenched in their routine, they aren’t even willing to entertain the possibility of changing their schedule even though it makes more sense.
- Control is a big one for some people. They justify driving everywhere by citing the “just in case” argument. What if the bus doesn’t some on time, or what is i get a puncture or what if….
- Lack of fitness is probably the most common one. People just aren’t getting enough exercise, so when it comes to walking a couple of kilometers or peddling up a slight slo pe they give up. There is no effort made so they revert back to the ol’ reliable car.
I’m not trying to lecture here or chastise. I’m not a perfect example by any stretch of the imagination but I just want to raise the issue and to possibly get people thinking about their own routine. All to often I see people going on a “health kick” where they start walking to work and eating healthy “rabbit food”. All of this lasts for about 2 weeks to a month and then they fall back into their old patterns. It’s unfortunate but it’s true.
- Click on image to zoom
What brought me to write this post was an article I saw on bikehacks.com. It’s about the amount of space that is required to transport people by car vs by bus vs by bike. I
thought that the visual element really brought the point home. That then got me onto the actual topic of this post.
Just imagine if half the people who could walk, cycle or take the bus to wherever they were going actually did. The amount of space that would be saved on our roads would be enormous. Our CO2 emissions would be reduced hugely and the general health of the population would improve drastically. I generally try to avoid grand statements and I’m avoiding it as much as I can here. But these are just my thoughts on the topic.