It's not a secret that we as humans use cars to get places. The mall, the grocery store, school, work. All these places may be too far to walk to, or just too much of a hassle to not use a car to get to. This is why vehicles have long been a main export and very commonly seen sight in the world. But what are they costing us? To name a few, vehicles are costing us clean air, time, and money that we are not going to get back easily, unless we change our bad habits. That's why limiting car usage is so beneficial to us as a population, not only for ourselves but for future generations as well. Putting a cap on driving will help us with the large amount of emmissions that is put out every day, it will reduce jams and increase safety, and it will be less expensive. Cars are a dirty form of transportation that need to be controlled better.

Along the lines of dirty, cars give off a gross amount of emmissions into the atmosphere. According to Elisabeth Rosenthal, "Passenger cars are responsible for 12 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in Europe. . .and up to 50 percent in some car-intensive areas in the United States." Cars, because they are used so much and so densely in the world, give off the highest amount of carbon emissions, second only to power plants. This is detrimental to our atomosphere and puts a serious weight on the air around us. Smog has started to get to escalate the extremes. "After days of near-record pollution, Paris enforced a partial driving ban to clear the air of the global city." as stated by Robert Duffer in an article detailing the heavy smog that rivaled even Beijing, China, often known as one of the most polluted cities globally. The five-day restriction on driving was implemented to, basically, give the air a rest after the intenseness of the trapped smog in the city reached 147 micrograms pf particulate matter per cubic meter, comparered with Brussels' 114 and London's 79.7. If we were to enforce this rule of reduced drivinhg everywhere, the amount of deducted pollution would be astronomical. It would be healthier for both the environment and for us humans.

Also being safer for humans would be the lower amount and intensity of traffic jams that would come with a restrictive hold on cars. With only exceptions for plug-in cars, hybrids, cars carrying three or more people, and public transportation, traffic jams would be nearly nonexistent. Examples have already been seen in places where restrictions have been implemented. "Congestion was down 60 percent in the capital of France," stated by Duffer of the ban on cars for the five-day pollutuion scare. Another big example is written my Andrew Selsky, and he states, "In a program that's set to spread to other countries, millions of Colombians hiked, biked, skated, or too buses to work during a car-free day yesterday, leaving the streets of [Bogota, Colombia] eerily devoid of traffic jams." Densely populated cities and highways are extremey dangerous, both for cars that may get into accidents and for the pedestrians that may be present. With a reduction of cars, the danger of being hit is lowered greatly. It also saves time, due to jams and high volumes of traffic bogging of streets gone. Walking and biking would be safer, and for the few who drive smartly, such as with a hybrid, the traffic would be all but gone as well. Health expenses and potential hospital bills would be avoided, and ease of getting where you need to go would be stress-free and simple.

On the important topic of less expenses, this leads into the final claim. Along with the restrictions of cars use comes less expenses, something we all want. Elisabeth Rosenthal writes, ". . .the number of miles driven per person was nearly 9 percent below the peak and equal to where the country was in January 1995. Part of the explaination certainly lies in the recession, because cash-strapped Americans could not afford new cars, and the unemployed weren't going to work anyway. But by many measures the decrease in driving preceded the downturn and apprears to be persisting now that the recovery is underway." This shows that the lessened use of cars has lead to an increase in money, and people are continuing to go through with this idea. Money is important to us, it is our lifeline in this cash-oriented world. Without it, we live poorly, in all senses of the word.

To end off, driving is not something absolutely needed in our world. It strips us of smog-free environments, time, safety, and money. Putting a cap on driving will help us with the large amount of emmissions that is put out every day, it will reduce jams and increase safety, and it will be less expensive in our daily lives. To reduce driving is to increse our standard of living.