Less cars more welfare

The concept of owning a car carries with it a symbolic meaning linked to the freedom and power of all economic independence.

I’ve grown up in the South of Italy, in a reality in which the idea of ​​achieving this independence and the idea of ​​fun is strictly related to private means of transport.

Unfortunately, this means that in my region, Sardinia, like in many other Italian regions, a large number of victims of the road are related to alcohol usage and a large number of them are very young people.
This is literally an everyday issue. As a matter of fact, I’ve had experience of people convinced about their capability to be sober when they drive, even if they’ve been drinking all the night long, because driving is so necessary to move in the city that they wouldn’t even imagine an alternative to that.

In my personal experience there’s an accident that I’ve caused because I was really stressed and late for work, too nervous to stay calm and realize that the car before me stopped, stuck in the traffic. Fortunately, it was nothing serious, but only after that I began to think about how bad it could’ve ended.

I think that many deaths and accidents could be avoided by educating the population since primary school to take public transports and to be, therefore, good passengers and pedestrians as well. No workers, with few exceptions, use public transports in some cities, because they can get stuck in the traffic caused by cars. That’s why having a licence is a fundamental component of one’s curriculum, since it means that the person has maximum freedom to move for work and be in time.

I have been living and studying in Edinburgh for almost a year, and I have started to walk more and take public busses. The city is definitely better organized to move like that than my hometown with taxis that have really more affordable prices and I’ve experienced how this would improve people’s mental health as well, because driving can be exhausting and a source of stress, one of the main causes of car accidents.

I’ve recently rented my first car in Scotland and this made me think how my mood was different in driving for leisure rather than because it was the only way to get to work or school. I liked the experience better and I was more relaxed and focused, paying more attention to the car and other drivers because I was not in a hurry.

Therefore, I think cars usage should become less and less common in everyday life and more something related to special occasions or long trips. it is so easy in fact to make mistakes when you are in a hurry and not to pay attention to the actions that become part of the routine, such as moving for work.

To conclude, I think that in cities like my hometown where the change would be really slow, a first solution could be discouraging the possession of cars and favour rental, so that driving would stop to occupy people’s life so much and thanks to the caution which one tends to have with a rented car, it would favour a degrowth in the spread of accidents, creating environmental benefits as well.