My Post-Driving Life [Dmitry Samarov]

I didn't learn to drive until I was 22. A year later I was behind the wheel of a cab. That's not how it's usually done in America. Most kids couldn't wait to turn 16 and get their learner's permit. Driving has been sold as freedom in this country ever since the advent of the automobile but it's slowly starting to change. And that's a very good thing.

Growing up in a city with public transportation, learning to drive never crossed my mind. A train, bus, bike or—most often—my own two feet could get me anywhere I wanted to go. My parents had a car but for whatever reason I had no desire to know anything about it. I was forced to learn toward the end of my undergraduate days. I had an interview in the graduate painting department at Yale University and had to haul my paintings from Chicago to New Haven. I did so in my girfriend's old Ford Grenada. I didn't get accepted into the program but my new skill came in handy after I moved back to Boston upon graduation.

I drove a cab from 1993-97 in Boston, then from 2003-12 in Chicago. Add 3 years of delivering Thai food and a good chunk of my working life has been spent behind the wheel. Driving has always been associated for me with making a living and rarely with pleasure or freedom. Watching rush-hour traffic in the city all those years, I never understood why most of the others on the road were doing what they were doing. In a city like Chicago there a many alternatives to the private vehicle and almost all are more convenient, affordable, and relaxing. I can think of few less productive or more wasteful and depressing modes of commute than sitting in gridlock twice a day, an hour or two each way.

In the last fe…

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I didn't learn to drive until I was 22. A year later I was behind the wheel of a cab. That's not how it's usually done in America. Most kids couldn't wait to turn 16 and get their learner's permit. Driving has been sold as freedom in this country ever since the advent of the automobile but it's slowly starting to change. And that's a very good thing.

Growing up in a city with public transportation, learning to drive never crossed my mind. A train, bus, bike or—most often—my own two feet could get me anywhere I wanted to go. My parents had a car but for whatever reason I had no desire to know anything about it. I was forced to learn toward the end of my undergraduate days. I had an interview in the graduate painting department at Yale University and had to haul my paintings from Chicago to New Haven. I did so in my girfriend's old Ford Grenada. I didn't get accepted into the program but my new skill came in handy after I moved back to Boston upon graduation.

I drove a cab from 1993-97 in Boston, then from 2003-12 in Chicago. Add 3 years of delivering Thai food and a good chunk of my working life has been spent behind the wheel. Driving has always been associated for me with making a living and rarely with pleasure or freedom. Watching rush-hour traffic in the city all those years, I never understood why most of the others on the road were doing what they were doing. In a city like Chicago there a many alternatives to the private vehicle and almost all are more convenient, affordable, and relaxing. I can think of few less productive or more wasteful and depressing modes of commute than sitting in gridlock twice a day, an hour or two each way.

In the last few years companies like Zipcar and iGo have presented alternatives to private car ownership. Rent a car for errands, then park and walk away. Simple. The proliferation of ride-sharing services like Lyft, Uber X, and Hailo also point to a new enthusiasm for escaping from the “freedom” of being shackled to one's own vehicle. Drivers want to be compensated for being stuck with these hunks of metal and who can blame them? The Divvy bike-sharing program has, by most accounts, been a big success and new bike lanes seem to appear around the city every other week. All these developments point to a tidal shift in how residents think about getting around their city.

One of the key benefits and pleasures of city life is the chance to interact with others. The private automobile is antithetical to that idea. It's a closed environment which only comes into contact with other similarly closed environments when they conflict. A traffic jam is rarely the place to make friends. Cars are mainly obstacles to other cars. This is not to say that pedestrians and bicyclists spend their days dancing jigs and spoiling one another with group hugs but that when they near one another there aren't yards of metal, plastic and glass separating them. As unpleasant as an overcrowded city bus may be, it's certainly less alienating than thousands of vehicles on a highway, each with one occupant, each going their own way.

They say that forward-thinking industrialists are investing in driverless vehicles and they can't get here fast enough for my taste. I can't wait to relinquish the control, but also the stress, worry and expense that comes along with my car keys. Any time I leave the house and take the Metra or the CTA rather than the car, the world feels like a lighter and more enjoyable place to be. With all the alternatives available these days, I hope never to buy my own automobile again. A car-free future would be a beautiful future indeed.

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