Cars are a luxury, but others take them for granted. Many people around the world operate cars every single day! Very few people around the world do not own a car, or have never operated one. In Vauban, Germany, residents of an upscale, high class community have decided to give up on cars. Vauban's steets are entirely "car-free" - except the in the city where the tram to downtown Freiburg runs, and a few streets on one edge of the community. Don't get Germany wrong, you are allowed to own a car, but there's very few places to park the car you own. The only placed you can park are large garages at the end of your neighborhood or development, but parking isn't free here. You must buy a space for $40,000, along with the price of your home. 70 percent of Vauban's citizens do not own cars, and 57 percent alone sold their car to move there. "When I had a car I was always tense. I'm much happier this way," said Heidrun Walter, a media trainer and a mother of two. Vauban, Germany completed in 2006, is an excellent example of a growing trend in Europe, the United States, and other places to separate suburban life from auto use, as a component of a movement called "smart planning." - According to Elisabeth Rosenthal who wrote, "In German Suburb, Life Goes On Without Cars."

Cars can either be a blessing or a mistake. Cars can tend to put out polluting gases, and endanger our earth. In Paris, all driving was banned due to smog. On a Monday, motorisits with even-numbered license plates were ordered to leave their cars at home or suffer a $31 fine. The same would apply to the odd-numbered plates the following day. The car emissions were trapped by a warmer layer of air, because of cold nights and warm days. Congestion in Paris, France wa down 60 percent after just five-days of intensifying snog. This caused the smog to rival Beijing, China, which is known as one of the most polluted cities in the world. That's pretty bad to be competing with China. The Monday where all cars were banned, the smog cleared enough for the ruling French party to rescind the ban for odd-numbered plates the following day.

Now, what about a car free day? In Bogota, Colombia, there was a car free day. Every citizen either had to hike, bike, skate, or take buses to work during this car-free day. This car free day caused the city to not have any traffic jams, and no accidents at all. This isn't just the first year that Colombia decided to do this, but it was the third! This day is specifically called, "Day Without Cars." 7 million citizens were expected to find a different way to go to the destinations they needed to reach, without their trusty cars. Bogota receives a vast amount of rain storms each day, but the turnout was still at large. "The rain hasn't stopped people from participating," said Bogota Mayor Antanas Mockus. Many citizens of Bogota said that this day takes away not only their stress, but also a ton of pollution. "It's a good opportunity to take away stress and lower air pollution," said businessman Carlos Arturo Plaza as he and his wife rode a two-seat bicycle.

Almost every single citizen in the United States of America owns or drives a car every single day. This has left researchers pondering a fundamental question: Has America passed the peak of driving? The United States is known for its broad expanses and suburban ideals, and has long been known for one of the world's prime car cultures. It is indeed the birthplace of Model T; the home of Detroit; the place where Wilson Pickett immortalized "Mustang Sally." Lately America's love addiction with motor vehicles seems to be settling down. As of April 2013, the number of miles driven per person was nearly 8 percent below the peak and equal to where the country was in January 1995. Most of the explanation to this certainly comes from recession, because broke Americans could not afford new cars, and the unemployed weren't going to work anyway. "What most intrigues me is that rates of car ownership per household and per person started to come down two to three years before the downturn," said Michael Sivak, who studies the trend and who is a research professor at the University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute. "I think that means something more fundamental is going on," he also said. All of these changes, people who stopped car commuting as a result of the recession need to find reasons NOT to resume the habit of driving and spending stupid amounts of money on gasoline. The state of New York has a new bike-sharing programs and its skyrocketing bridge and tunnel tolls refelct those new priorities, as do a proliferation of car-sharing programs across the nation. A study last year found that driving by young people decreased 23 percent between 2001 and 2009.

Many people around the world have cut driving out of their life for many reasons. Some being; safety, money, and pollution. If you had to choose between driving or public transportation to make the littlest difference in your community, what would you choose?