> I'm always amazed at this logic. It makes me wonder if you either have an incredible amount of free time or you don't rely on any service provided to you with a vehicle, or are you just not considering them when pondering this way openly?

Not really sure what you're getting at. Yes, I would get in an ambulance, or even a taxi, if I really needed one. That's not what "not car-centric" is about. No, I don't need things delivered to me and I don't need a car to access goods and services. I don't buy a lot in the first place; public transit works acceptably here; I'm capable of walking several km (and I'd spend the time on other forms of exercise otherwise); I mostly cook my own meals.

And there are parts of the world where public transit is actually good and it's often rational to take it even if trip time is your only consideration.

> That has almost no accessibility for the disabled or has accessible functionality that's terribly tacked on as an afterthought.

Yes, I didn't say it was good. But you can also still just talk to a cashier at the front counter here.

I was being a bit of a harsh hipster there; however, I always think about the sheer number of vehicles required just to keep your electricity or high speed internet running and how often I see that type of vehicle in a drive through. I think it's sometimes a little easy to forget why our lives are as convenient as they are.

> the sheer number of vehicles required just to keep your electricity or high speed internet running

Yes, well, in large part that's due to choices other people could also make differently.

In places without widespread drivethroughs they still have electricity and internet.

Non-car-centric doesn't mean no cars. It means a society not centered around the crazy amounts of cars.

A lot of those types of workers who have vans full of tools use them as their main vehicles. That van being in the drive through doesn't mean the drive through is supporting the societal function that's advertised on the van. It just means a worker who does that for a living is currently buying food there.

> > One more reason I'm glad not to have a car-centric lifestyle

> I'm always amazed at this logic.

Not OP and maybe it's just my European showing, but I own a brand-new car yet frequently go 4-5 days without actually driving it. Because going to work and dropping off kids at daycare using a bicycle is literally faster than doing it in a car.

Whenever the issue of cars come up the gaping divide between Europeans and Americans rears its ugly head. It's like someone living at the equator telling the Alaska resident that though they own a winter hat, they rarely feel the need to use it. In many areas of Europe it is not only possible, but convenient to get around without a car. In the overwhelming majority of the United States it's impossible or inconvenient with only a couple of cities (like NYC) where it's even feasible. In fact, a growing number of eateries and coffee places in the USA are solely accessible via the drive through. They don't accept walk in customers at all and have no dining area.

This was a deliberate political decision by the USA. It wasn't an accident and it isn't because of geography.

But isnt the problem that america was built by americans to be car-centric? Most americans dont live in the middle of nowhere in a forest cabin or on a ranch. No one is saying individuals in america are bad for using a car when the system is broken. The critic is about the system.