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Originally Posted by Cynthetiq
driving is a privilege.
if you need to transport yourself from point A to point B and you live in Pennsylfucktuckana it isn't easy. It wasn't easy in the 1700's and it isn't any easier to flat foot it in the 21st century.
I know plenty of people who have never driven a vehicle, and some that got their license to drive at age 36. I own a car here in Manhattan, I pay a premium to store it, in some cities it is the rent of a 1 bedroom apartment but I pay for the priviledge car ownership and of driving.
As a resident of NYC I can pay $2 and get from the furthest reaches of the Bronx and get all the way to Coney Island, Brooklyn, all without need of a car. It may take me about 1.5 - 2 hours to do so each way, but I can get there.
As far as living outside of NYC, the transportation is also pretty decent if you work and play in NYC. People commute without need of a car as far as Pennsylvania, Conneticut and the furthest ends of Long Island.
A person who doesn't own a vehicle pays the least amount of taxes to fund roads and highways. I don't use the school system but I pay taxes to fund it. A person using the school system doesn't necessarily pay more to use that system. A person using the roads does via fuel taxes, car registration fees, and tolls.
You choose where you live. If you can't compete where you live, then you move. People moved across oceans because they had better opporunities in another country.
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Even Pennsylfucktuckanians had horse-and-buggy carriages, which, given the available technology back then provided the same level of transportation freedom an automobile would have today.
Living in NYC gives puts you in a unique position of having a public transportation system that is unmatched by any other city in this nation. This public transit system is the only one that can give you the equivalent freedom to get from point A to B on a whim as you could with a car. Given the heavy traffic and lack of available parking that a driver in NYC faces, often times, it's to their advantage to use public transportation instead of their own cars.
Outside of NYC, it's a different story. Buses arrive on the half hour, and on less uses routes, on the hour. The lack of routes means the bus would have to take circuitous routes to get from here to there. When I lived in Florida, a 20 minute ride by car to my job was a two hour ride by bus which meant taking a trip from Kissimmee into the terminal in downtown Orlando, then another bus from there to my job at Universal Studios. Making the ride even more unpleasant was the abundance of homeless folks occasionally made the bus their home, drunk or otherwise. But enough about my sob story.
Driving may be viewed as a privilege, but given the local geography, lack of public transportation, and significant changes to a person's life when the ability to use a car is lost (to include their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness), it would be a mistake to label it a privilege like this is a trivial posession.