Driving is one of America's favorite things to do, it is looked at as a right of passage, of sorts, for young American's and yet driving is now becoming less and less imoprtant to them. The decrease in the amount of people who are driving and using cars is not only happening in the United States, all over the world people are limiting their car usage. There is a plethora of advantages to limiting car usage with the main three being that it can make people happier by reducing stress, it allow's people to get more excersize, and it can drastically reduce pollution.

First and foremost, people limiting their car usage can make them considerably happier. One reason for this occurance could be that using a motor vehicle less can help reduce stress. In the article"In German Suburb, Life Goes on Without Cars", when asked Heidrun Walter said that "When I had a car I was always tense. I'm much happier this way."(Rosenthal,3). She lives in a town where there are almost no privately owned motor vehicles. A business man from Bogota,Columbia has also said that using a car less, or even not using one for a day, as they do in Bogota, is "a good opportunity to take away stress,"(Selsky,24). If people don't have to worry about all of the extra expenses and responsibilities that come with a car, then they will not have any stress regarding them and will be happier.

Likewise, limiting car usage can help people get more excersize and lead to a healthier lifestyle. In his article," Car-free day is spinning into a big hit in Bogota", Andrew Selsky describes a program in which cars are banned and only public transportation is allowed on the Day Without Cars in Bogota, Columbia. Bogota has been having a Day Without Cars for 3 years and Selsky says that one of the goals "is to promote alternative transportation"(Selsky,21). On the Day Without Cars,"millions of Columbians hiked, biked, skated, or took buses to work..., leaving the streets of this capital city eerily devoid of traffic jams."(Selsky,20). Implementing a program like this helps people get excersize by promoting biking and walking to work and can lead to a healthier lifestyle by encouraging people to use those methods of transportation on a daily basis.

Equally as important, when people reduce their car usage it can drastically reduce pollution. Robert Duffer says that "After days of near-record pollution,Paris enforced a partial driving ban to clear the air."(Duffer,10) in his article, "Paris bans driving due to smog". Duffer says that in Paris the ban was set up so that all people with even numbered license plates were told to leave their cars at home on one day and the next day people with odd numbered license plates were told to leave their cars at home. If a person violated the ban then they were fined 22 euros. After only five days, congestion was cut down 60 percent according to Duffer and by the next Monday the smog had cleared enough for the French ruling party to "rescind the ban"(Duffer, 19). By limiting their automobile usage for just one week Paris was able to reduce their air pollution by a large amount. In the article, "The End of Car Culture" Elisabeth Rosenthal states that if the pattern of less American's buying cars  persists then " it will have benificial implications for carbon emissions and for the environment, since transportation is the second largest source of America's emissions,"(Rosenthal,34).

In summation, there are many advantages to limiting car usage. Limiting car usage can have postitive effects on people and the Earth because it can make people happier by reducing stress, it allow's people to get more excersize and lead healthier lives, and it can drastically reduce pollution. Many sources believe that the advantages of limiting car use greatly outweigh the disadvantages and think that the limited use of motor vehicles will increase in popularity.