Walking the Talk: How to Change the World One (Less) Car at a Time

An excerpt from the forthcoming book Slower Traffic: Life Without a Car in Maine, USA.

“Beam me up, Scotty.”

“Billions and billions…”

“Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

These are famous quotes never spoken, popularly attributed to James T. Kirk, Carl Sagan, and Mohandas Gandhi, respectively.

“Be the change” is often cited as an admonishment to do good work in the world. Though my motivations aren’t entirely unselfish, I like to think there’s a little bit of Gandhi in my life without a car. I want to see fewer cars on the road. Therefore, I don’t own one. It may seem like a small thing, subtracting one car from the vast American traffic picture, but small increments can

add up to long-term change.

Here is the actual Gandhi quote:

“We but mirror the world.  All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body.  If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change.  As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him.  This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.”

Modern folk wisdom has condensed it to a single sentence, a phrase we can all remember. But it’s not bad advice. I’m not waiting for public transportation to get better or for drivers to get friendlier toward bicyclists; I’m riding the bus and the bicycle now. I’m not sure that giving up cars has changed my nature, or the world, in the sense that Gandhi meant, but it has changed my outlook on life.

I’d like to see a lot of changes in the world that I can’t do anything about. One thing I can do is keep my name off a car registration and encourage others to do the same. I had seldom questioned my need for a vehicle, even as I simmered in San Diego freeway traffic or scraped the bottom of my bank account in Maine to buy snow tires. It was not until I gave up my car that I

saw how unnecessary it was for me to own one.

Can everyone do it? No – but many of us can. Many of us only think we need a car at our disposal, all the time. I know. I was one of them.