Also, forcing cities to accommodate cars via zoning has lead to a huge host of problems, from making centers that are no longer walkable, and destroying the social fabric of the city that used to happen via face to face interactions. Anywhere there is fast traffic, people no longer want to walk, because it's incredibly stressful being near speeding cars.
If you want a visible demonstration of the difference, visit some small pre-car cities in Italy, the public places are wonderful, and you can see people bumping into each other and chatting all the time. People walk everywhere. Compare with the sprawling wastelands of asphalt we've created, including on some of the most expensive parking lots in the world in Silicon Valley.
Even relatively podunk towns have typically walkable centers and local transit connecting to frequent regional train service and sometimes stops by long distance, high-speed services.
In Germany, regional all day rail passes can be had for as little as 10 EUR! I imagine the situation is quite similar in Italy.
>>Automobiles provide freedom to choose where you want to live and work. They are cleaner than ever and getting cleaner every year.
I think you're still ignoring the pollution deaths and massive negative external effects the automobile has on society, especically on those who can't participate in an auto-dominated society. The waste is colossal.
Automobiles provide freedom if you're luck enough to not be young, old, poor, disabled etc. Why do we want to design society around excluding huge groups from mobility, when bikes, effective public transit and walkability can open up our country to everyone?
My job is 20 miles away, I'm not riding a bike. I don't want to spend hours going to and from work every day. I'm not moving my kids into a shittier house without a big yard in a shittier school district, just so I can bike to work.
I'm not going to move my family in a shitty apartment just so we can have "density" and force everyone to use shitty mass transit.
My daughters dojo is 5 miles from my house, she ain't walking there. I'm not sending her to the shitty dojo down the street.
No one is getting excluded. The young, old, poor and disabled are driven everywhere in cars. If they can't drive themselves, someone drives them. Thats what we do for family members. And soon the car itself will drive them.
There are plenty of ways to have a accesible city designed for multimodal transportation. Look to many European cities to show how this used to be done. It doesn't take much imagination to find out it doesn't have to be "shitty".
I don't think you really understand what life is like without a car in America. Like it or not, people are being excluded. A third of households in my city don't have a car (likely not out of choice). Transit is sparse. How are they supposed to access job centers, , shopping education opportunities built in the auto dominated sprawl? Hint: you can't build your life around asking other people for rides.
You don't seem open to the idea of a different lifestyle. I get that. At the very least I ask that you consider the real impact your choice of driving has on other people, and how it's subsidized by society.
Sorry?
2) You can get cancer from many other things than cigarettes.
http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/lung-cancer/ris...
> Smoking tobacco is one of the biggest causes of lung cancer. More than 8 out of 10 lung cancers (80%) are caused by smoking .This includes breathing in other people’s cigarette smoke.
https://www.drinkaware.co.uk/alcohol-facts/health-effects-of...
> Over the long term, drinking alcohol increases your risk of serious illnesses, such as mouth, throat and breast cancer1. Of course, not everyone who drinks will get cancer. But scientists have found that some cancers are more common in people who drink alcohol than those who don’t.
[...]
> One study has estimated that around 4% of all cancers are due to alcohol consumption
Except that buses and trains and horses and teslas kill people and pollute. Even bikes kill people. Every mode of transportation is a killer, so if you want to eliminate travel deaths you can only eliminate travel.
If you eliminated cars completely tens of thousands would likely still die in the US from transportation accidents. But now you've trapped people and forced them to live close to work, do less traveling, and live crappier lives.
Automobiles provide freedom to choose where you want to live and work. They are cleaner than ever and getting cleaner every year.
And the vast majority of the US is empty land.
And the below age of 25 stat is incredibly misleading. People under the age of 25 rarely die of disease or cancer, which are by far the leading causes of death. They rarely die at all which is why car accidents are disproportionally represented for young people. In reality 99% of people who die had a cause of death unrelated to traffic accidents.