"The most obvious: the elderly and people with disabilities"

Interesting you pick that as your first point, as this is an argument for the opposite.

The 3 groups of people that can't drive, are these 2 and kids.

How do you move your eldery father to your home for christmas? You drive to him, get him in your car and drive him to your home.

> The 3 groups of people that can't drive, are these 2 and kids.

Ah sorry, I should have explicitly stated that they need others to drive them around. Taxis and public transport are usually not convenient for them.

Id argue against public transport not being convenient older people, certainly compared to other groups. I can see how public transport is more of a challenge for certain disabled groups. I can't see why taxis couldn't fill that role here though???

They can't drive by themselves, but can be driven in a car by friend or family, who will take them exactly to their final destination. Public transportation requires them to walk significant distance, climb stairs, etc, which is not nearly as convenient. Of course taxis are the alternative, but they are quite expensive, and taxi driver might not be as helpful and forgiving for their disabilities as a family member would.

Yep, taxi drivers are strangers, which is not desirable for people who need to be chaperoned, and in worse cases it puts those passengers at a risk of being taken advantage of (like being charged an unnecessarily higher fare, or not getting their forgotten belongings back.)

In a future where we get rid of private cars, we could have community taxis/buses that are trained to deal with these things.

Theres a woman near me with some kind of mental impairment that gets picked up and dropped off by a mini bus with a lift on the back, so the model obviously exists in some form.

Plus it doesn't rely on a support network that may not be there.

- Children love to ride bikes when it is safe to do so, from personal experience.

- If you keep some (inverse of most) streets open to a small amount of traffic (Like Barcelona's superblocks [1]), the elderly and those with disabilities are still mobile.

- Why is privacy needed when travelling? Do you require a private enclosure around you when you are walking? I've met many interesting people from all walks of life while cycling and on public transport that I wouldn't have had the chance to meet otherwise, just like I meet people when on foot. Car free streets provide many more interesting street restaurants/businesses for such activities you describe.

- Travelling with the whole family on a train or cycling is pretty good. For example, in Sydney the seats of most of our trains flip so you can have up to 6 people facing each other.

Though I am excited for self driving cars because we won't need so much parking!

[1]: https://theconversation.com/superblocks-are-transforming-bar...

You are assuming all cultures/societies to be the same.

Could you elaborate which points would differ between cultures?

If one is choosing to live in a city, they are willing to be surrounded by other people in their daily life.

I don't think anyone is advocating banning/reducing cars in suburbia.

>• The most obvious: People who need to be chaperoned: children, the elderly and people with disabilities.

Children don't need to be chaperoned. In Japan, children as young as 4 go on errands to the local store to buy things for their parents, and children as young as 6/7 walk themselves to school.

>• Following on the previous point: Going out with the whole family as a single unit, with provisions for taking care of infants etc. right there.

A family can easily walk together in a city, take a subway together, etc. People in other countries seem to have no trouble carrying "provisions for infants" in a bag with them.

>• Privacy for groups of people, with group activities (e.g. playing music, making out) confined to the automobile's enclosure.

I don't see how privacy when making out is some kind of urgent need in society. Get a room. Or go to a public park. Seriously?

> In Japan

This is what I meant by my reply to the other comment: Not all cultures/societies are the same.

It also happens to be the explanation for the other points.

Well if your culture is so utterly broken that you feel the need to "chaperone" your children everywhere, then maybe you need to fix your broken culture. Japan and Western Europe both show that you don't need cars the way you do in America, and trying to handwave it away with a lame excuse like "well, cultures are different" isn't helping anything.