This is a guest post from Amy Vaerewyck, writer extraordinaire, and car-free-lifestyle guru. In her reflection in this post, Amy shares here the real reason why she is car-free. Read on to find out.
I could pretend to be a beacon of compassion and do-goodery, but I’ve never been very good at lying.
I am car-free, because I believe I have a responsibility to minimize my negative impact on the environment to the best of my ability. But that’s really secondary to another reason:
I don’t like cars.
Sure, there are some great things about cars—convenience, speed, road trips, drive-in movies. But, for me, there aren’t enough great things about them to off-set the great idiocy they’ve brought to our world, such as:
- Highways carved out through trees that were growing and supporting life hundreds of years before the combustion engine was even thought of;
- Populations of people who never raise their heart rate above 75 beats per minute;
- Daily routines that involve fewer than 10 minutes outside of climate-controlled containers; and
- Urban infrastructures so unconcerned with pedestrians that you have to drive your car to the store even though it’s right across the road from your house.
Cars are not the enemy, but they’re certainly not very good friends, are they?
I believe we need to steer ourselves away from a car-centered culture and drive toward something
better:
- Natural areas touched only by hiking boots and tent stakes;
- People who can treat themselves to an extra chocolate chip cookie, because they rode their bike to work and walked to the grocery store;
- Daily routines that involve time outdoors and actually make us want to get out of bed in the morning; and
- Cities where we can walk to a department store without engaging in a game of human Frogger.
See what I mean? It’s not compassion I’m about. It’s chocolate chip cookies.
Amy - Car-Free Guru
Originally from LaPorte, Indiana, Amy Vaerewyck is a writer, focusing non-profits. She’s been car-free since 2006 when her Nissan Sentra breathed its last breath on the highway between Washington, D.C., and the Delaware beaches. Since then, she’s walked, run, biked, bussed, subway-ed, and carpool-ed her way through life. She lives in Denver and dreams of living in Italy. You can read more about her car-free life in her blog, “No Car Go.”
