I thought I would end my series of posts on living car-free with a more positive note. I’ve found a lot of joy and happiness along the way! There are so many other paths that a person can take to experience life, and my walking out of car culture helped me to see and feel a richness that I couldn’t have experienced in an automobile.

As an introduction of sorts, here is a video by the Swapathgami Network in Udaipur, India. Many thanks to Manish Jain and Shikshantar for producing wonderful films like this! While this video addresses more of the system of Education, I believe it applies to our very thought processes and lives. We can close the book on what everyone expects us to do or be, and truly live!

As early as 2006, I really reduced my driving when I still owned my car. I went back for a time to graduate school and did a self-designed summer course all about bicycling. I traveled by bus or train to other cities to experience them atop a bicycle. I mapped my journeys in Minneapolis, Madison, WI, and Portland, OR. I used to live in Madison in 2000, but never rode my bike once back then. What a shame, because Madison is just awesome to tour on a bicycle.

Portland opened my eyes to how a city can really function as trains, busses, and bicycles comingle with cars so easily.

And now, Minneapolis, the city I live in, has been voted the number 1 bicycling city in the United States by Bicycle Magazine!

I joined a bike sharing program called NiceRideMN last fall, and I’m also a member of HourCar in case I do need to travel by car in the city (which averages less than once per month).

I feel like I’ve gained so much back in my life. I love the exercise of walking and biking, and I love how economical it is to travel by bus. I have my time back, where I can sit back and relax while I travel. I can read books on the bus. I can write and journal on longer bus trips (I’m writing this blog post as I travel from Minneapolis to Madison on a bus!).

I have a lot more hope and joy in my life that I’m doing something right for myself and right for the planet. I want to be bicycling still in my 70s and 80s, still enjoying life to the fullest like this.

So definitely, I began my car-free journey because of finances, and possibly because of the car accident I experienced. However, I’ve stayed car-free for the sheer joy it brings me!

May you all find your own joy!

This is my second post in a series about living car-free.

So, another reason why I think I embraced a car-free life initially, was because of a whiplash accident I experienced in 2007. It’s probably still ongoing at this point, but in the initial stages, I had major driving-anxiety after the accident. I had to challenge myself to drive for one hour at times. Driving for 5 or 6 hours on a long trip just wasn’t going to happen. Psychologically, this injury stayed with me.

It also stayed with me physically. I spent a good six months at first going to chiropractor appointments, massage appointments, acupuncture appointments, meditation classes, etc. These all helped a lot. My problem was that I didn’t stick with them, and 18 months later, I had a major relapse of pain in my body, with the same psychological symptoms as well.

My chiropractor (for the second round) told me that, “50% of all accident and trauma victims have pain symptoms that they have to manage for years to the rest of their life.”

Not a great thing to hear.

But lets talk statistics, and how being in a car isn’t the safest place to be anyway.

• There are more than six million car accidents each year in the United States
• A person dies in a car accident every 12 minutes and each year car crashes kill 40,000 people.
• The leading cause of death for individuals between 2 and 34 years old is motor vehicle crashes.
• Someone is injured by a car crash every 14 seconds and about two million of the people injured in car accidents each year suffer permanent injuries.
• Over 25% of all drivers were involved in an auto accident in a five-year period.
• Excessive speed is the second most common cause of deadly auto accidents, which accounts for about 30% of fatal accidents.
• Car crashes cost each American more than $1,000 a year; $164.2 billion is the total cost each year across the United States.
• Car accidents are the leading cause of death for kids between 2 and 14; About 2,000 children die each year from injuries caused by car accidents.
• Each year, almost 250,000 children are injured in car crashes, meaning nearly 700 kids are harmed every day.
• Car accidents are the leading cause of acquired disability nationwide.

So, I’m a statistic I guess you’d say.  Only my car accident yielded me at first about 30 chiropractor appointments, 15 massage appointments, and 10 acupuncture appointments.  This tapped out my $20,000 Personal Injury Protection policy with my car insurance.

Apart from my injury, and the gloomy statistics, I’ll share some positive things about the health of people who choose public transportation.

• A new report, released by the American Public Transportation Association, which surveys current research has found that people who live in communities with high-quality public transportation drive less, exercise more, live longer, and are generally healthier than residents of communities that lack quality public transit.
• One study explains that nearly half of Americans do not meet the Surgeon General’s recommendation of > or =30 minutes of physical activity daily. However, some transit users may achieve 30 minutes of physical activity daily solely by walking to and from transit. This study estimates the total daily time spent walking to and from transit and the predictors of achieving 30 minutes of physical activity daily by doing so.
• Another Study in Charlotte, NC states -  A year after a light rail system in Charlotte, North Carolina, began running, commuters who took light rail to work regularly were 6.45 pounds lighter than the folks who drove, researchers found.

What about stress?  What about time not spent heckling cars in traffic?  How many folks do you know who have episodes of “road rage”?  I found that I have MORE time to read, listen to music, and even (gasp) to talk to people, when I take transit.

Even the CDC states that when all impacts are considered, improving public transit can be one of the most cost effective ways to achieve public health objectives, and public health improvements are among the largest benefits provided by high quality public transit and transit-oriented development.

So health is a very important objective of mine now that I’m car-free.  On the day I’m typing this, I’m 41 and I biked 7 miles today in winter temperatures, I walk daily to and from the gym which is 11 blocks away (sometimes just to soak in the hot tub!).  I participate in Nice Ride MN’s bike sharing program to get around the city in the Summer.  I can actually WORK LESS and give myself TIME for more activities that I enjoy in life, because I don’t have to spend $6,000 a year just to own my car.

When you compare owning a car to not owning a car in the health column, I think I’ve found out that the comparison is very clear, and that the health benefits can be extremely positive when folks choose public transportation, walking, or biking instead of getting into an automobile.

This week I turned 41 years old!

I really think that age is indeed just a number, and that anyone can be “forever young” or “feel old” – and that it’s a choice as to which one of those you feel! Today, when I stopped into my bank to make a deposit, the teller said, “Oh! By the way, Happy Birthday!”

After a second or two of wondering how my birthday information just automatically appeared on her computer screen, I asked her, “Now you get to guess my age without looking at your computer screen!”

She pondered a bit and said, “Hmm… 29?”

“You can look at your screen now!”

She looked back in disbelief but then said, “Good for you! I’m only a year older than you!”

I did come to the bank by bike, and was wearing my bike helmet, so that could account for the bad age-guessing. And speaking of bikes, when I *was* 29, I don’t think I ever would have imagined going car-free and using a bicycle for transportation around town at 30, let alone 40 or 41!

I *will* live to be 100! That’s my goal! Hopefully I’ll be a nice 75-looking guy by then!

May you all stay forever young!