People’s obsession with cars is a very weird phenomenon indeed. Cars are the worst possible investment: when you buy a car, from the moment you leave the shop, your new toy loses about half of its value. Any other form of transport is much, much, much less expensive than owning a car. And, as Indi correctly points out, cars are by far the most popular killing tools, unless you are in the US of A, where guns might be even more obsessively loved and wanted than the (uselessly enormous) pick-ups you see on Anerican roads.
In Europe, where I used to live, every street could easily be adorned with double lines of the most beautiful of trees. Instead, almost all streets have uninterrupted lines of unused cars (what else is a parked car, if not an unused one?) on both sides.
Although I have a license, I haven’t had a car for many, many years. I even hesitate to take taxis. And have I missed a car? - not even once, not even for a split second.