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Nearly One-third of Consumers Would Give Up Their Car Before Their Smartphone (computerworld.com)
Lucas123 writes: A survey of 1,200 general consumers in four major countries by global tech design firm Frog found that 30% of respondents would give up their car before their smartphone. The online survey, which included the U.S., China, Denmark, and Germany, found that 37% of car owners would like to give up their car outright or felt they could get by without it by using an alternative form of transportation. "I think the people of my generation saw driving a vehicle as a rite of passage to adulthood. That was your freedom. I think the generation now views going from point A to point B as just occupying time that they could be doing something else," said Andrew Poliak of QNX Software Systems. At the same time, another survey revealed that even engineers continue to be wary of fully autonomous vehicles, including their vulnerability to hacks and exploits. The survey of IEEE members found they are not comfortable having autonomous vehicles pick up/drop off their children.
...they can get a ride just with their smartphone.
Plus they can always bum a ride off their friends (oh, lets be honest, more likely their parents - more and more 18+ live with their parents due to insane rents and general inflation combined with a poor job market).
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
While we're on the subject of unrealistic counterfactuals... If each American had to choose between keeping their cellphone or their gun, how many would choose which?
Using a car isn't wasting time; using public transportation is wasting time. The public transportation goes from a specific location to another specific location (so it takes time to walk to and from those locations), and costs even more time when you transfer or wait for the next bus or train. It also might not go in a straight line and probably stops at many places along the way which you would not do in a car.
Also, even places with otherwise good public transportation tend to only cover almost all of the times when you'd need it. Covering *all* of the times when you'd need it means having the public transportation run routes at times and places when the ridership is very low; governments hate doing this because it's a money sink, so you still need a car for that last 5% or 10% of the uses.
"Public transport goes almost everywhere I need,"
Then you obviously don't need to go anywhere outside of the city or somewhere that isn't served by national rail. I also live in London and I'd be fecked without my car because I have friends and relatives who live in small towns up north which by car takes 2 hours and by public transport would take literally half a day. And then theres just having days out in the car with the baby. Good luck doing that on a train or bus and retaining your sanity.