Five reasons to try a #WeekWithoutDriving

National Week Without Driving happens October 2nd - 8th. Here are five benefits of challenging yourself to avoid driving for one week.

By Hexel Colorado on October 2, 2023

This is the second in a series of posts themed around National Week Without Driving, a national campaign that is organized locally by Dallas Bicycle Coalition.

When I sold my car in January 2022, I wanted to save money and pay off credit cards. I imagined finding a modest vehicle after one year of my “lifestyle experiment” because I underestimated the full benefits to my finances, health, social life, and overall well-being. Almost two years later, I had no intention of rebuying a car. You don’t need to get rid of your car to participate in #WeekWithoutDriving. But by challenging yourself to avoid driving for a week, you’ll discover ways of moving, living, and seeing Dallas that you never could in a car.

REASON #1: Rediscover your city by seeing it in new ways

The two drawings below come from research in Germany wherein young students were asked to draw their trip to school. Children who walk to school drew a more vibrant picture than those driven in a car.

Two children's drawings of their school trip. The first drawing is by a child driven to school. The second drawing is by a child who walks to school.

A study in the United States by urbanist researcher Donald Appleyard found very similar results. Children who had a “windshield perspective” from being driven everywhere weren’t able to accurately draw how the streets in their community connected, whereas children who walked or biked to get around produced detailed and highly accurate maps of their neighborhood street network. Appleyard followed up with children in a heavy-traffic neighborhood after improvements were made to pedestrian and bike infrastructure. Not only could they draw more detailed maps, they were happier with their environment.

“Windshield perspective” is not limited to children; adults are just as susceptible to losing sight of where they are, especially with the ubiquity of Google Maps. In the show Parks & Recreation, city employee Tom Haverford is banned by court order from using any screens for a week [25-second video] after he crashes his car while tweeting and driving; the next day he arrives to work an hour-and-a-half late because he “drove around in circles until he saw something familiar.” He lived only 3 miles away.

I used to be one of those who couldn’t drive home when my phone died. Even if I lived only a mile away, I would have been as lost as a stranger in a foreign land. By walking, cycling, and riding public transit everywhere, I feel an intimate connection with my neighborhood and its people and businesses.

REASON #2: Walk more, live healthier

Remember WALL-E? In the 2008 animated sci-fi movie, every human is strapped to a personal flying auto-chair. Nobody walks anywhere because nobody needs to. As a result, society devolved into helpless blobs. That version of reality is not very far in the future [3:24 video]. At least we still walk from couch to garage.

Guidelines from the US Department of Health and Human Services recommend that adults get at least 10 consecutive minutes of walking daily. But car-dependence means not having many opportunities for “useful walks.” Meanwhile, public transit riders easily fit at least 30 minutes of walking daily because of the 10-15 minutes it often takes to reach bus stops and train stations.

Only 64.5% of Americans are physically active, and 25.4% do not participate in leisure time physical activity at all.

In the book Walkable City, author Jeff Speck goes into great detail about the importance of active transportation and useful walks in daily life. I highly recommend reading the excerpt from the book over on Streetsblog USA; below are highlights that stood out to me.

People who walk 8.6 minutes daily are 33% more likely to report better mental health.
If someone shifts from a long commute to a walk, their happiness increases as much as if they’d fallen in love.
A 2021 study found that people who get around more on foot or by bicycle were demonstrably more likely to engage in policy change efforts through writing letters, making phone calls, and/or attending community meetings.
Being subjected to traffic noise “results in altered blood chemistry and meddles with blood vessel function,” resulting in a greater risk of diabetes, heart attacks, and strokes.
A 1981 study found that people who live on streets with light car traffic counted an average of three friends, while people on car-heavy streets averaged 0.9 friends.

In Beijing, the right to buy a car is determined by a lottery. This resulted in a “naturally randomized experiment”: researchers found that after 5 years, the car lottery “winners” gained 22 pounds on average if they were over the age of 50. I’ve observed a similar accidental experiment in my own life. In the year before I gave up driving, I lost 20 pounds of body fat working out at the gym 3 times a week. After selling my car, I switched to what Jason from Not Just Bikes on YouTube calls the “gym of life.” [13:14 video]. Despite not setting foot in a workout gym since, I haven’t gained back a pound.

Because most public transit trips begin or end with walking, public transit use can be an important opportunity to add physical activity into one’s day.

REASON #3: Avoid injury, save lives

Dallas’ traffic situation is summed up poignantly by Alex Macon from D Magazine in 2020: “Last year, 228 people were killed in traffic in Dallas, marking an 80% increase in the annual number of traffic fatalities here between 2010 and 2020. Of the 15 most populated cities in the country, we have the second highest traffic fatality rate: more than 14 deaths per 100,000 people.” As a society, large numbers are often easier to shrug off than small ones. Let’s put those big stats into perspective:

Cars kill at least 4 people in Dallas every week on average. That’s 1 dead every other day.

That only counts fatalities specifically in the City of Dallas. Across the North Central Texas (12-county) region, there were 864 deaths and 4,518 people seriously injured by vehicular crashes in 2022.

How do we pull those numbers down to zero? We don’t need to ban cars for everybody everywhere. We just need to reduce the opportunities for accidents and crashes in the first place by simply reducing how much we drive. By taking a break from driving for one week, you not only lower your risk of harm but also make a dent in danger to other drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians. Case in point, of the dozens of vehicles piled up on I-30 in Dallas, a few weeks ago, it probably only took 1 or 2 bad drivers to crash all 28 vehicles.

In addition to eliminating your risk for one week, participating in #WeekWithoutDriving can teach you knowledge and techniques to lower your risk in the future. Who says you have to stop taking the bus after October 9th?

REASON #4: Save money

The financial incentives for going car-free are talked about so much that it almost goes without saying. I mention several ways cars bleed money in my first article in this #WeekWithoutDriving series. As much as it’s talked about, many people underestimate their potential savings from avoiding driving. One reason savings are overlooked is we focus on the cost of car ownership. We may remind people all day long that the average owner spends over $11,000 a year on their vehicle, but that doesn’t matter if going without one isn’t an option: it is what it is.

Remember, you can still save money by simply driving less.

Obviously, fewer miles means less paying at the pump.
Lowering your annual mileage could lower your insurance premium.
Your car doesn’t need a wash if it never leaves the garage (or nobody sees it).
Don’t need repairs if your car never crashes.
You don’t have a parking meter at home.
The more you drive your car, the sooner you’ll need to replace it.

REASON #5: Build resilience

As you personalize #WeekWithoutDriving to fit your needs and lifestyle, don’t limit your imagination to only replacing your existing car trips. I encourage you to consider everything you can’t do because of your car. You may find that you have greater freedom if you’re not tied to a 3-ton hunk of metal.

Traffic kills fun

A few weeks ago, a post titled “Anyone else feels like it is almost not worth making plans due to traffic?” made the front page of r/Dallas on Reddit. “I just get worn down by all the traffic. There’s so many cars on the road that it kinda doesn’t matter what time you go. Of course, rush hour is the worst, but even during regular hours (unless you’re traveling late at night), it’s still almost unbearable.” People post on the subreddit about their frustration and helplessness with car traffic multiple times per week.

Fireworks, parades, state fairs, block parties, marathons, sports games, live concerts… how often has traffic killed your desire to enjoy what your city offers?

Parking prevents spontaneity

A peculiar social norm in Dallas is the expectation that people should drive themselves to bars. I say should because Dallas is a city that flies in the face of logic by requiring all businesses that serve alcohol to provide free parking to their patrons.

One Monday night in 2019, I left dance class and walked over to Halcyon, a coffee & cocktail bar in Lower Greenville. Halcyon is a popular hangout spot with decent Wi-Fi, ample seating, plentiful wall outlets, and long hours. As often happens, I unexpectedly ran into a friend whom I hadn’t seen in a long time; he had been studying on his laptop for most of that day. I sat down with him, replacing his empty coffee mugs with beers. As we wrapped up our spontaneous visit and got up to go home, it was clear to me that he had one too many drinks, and I did not feel comfortable letting him drive home. We proceeded to have an argument in the parking lot as I demanded he either let me call him a cab or let me give him a ride. He only relented after bystanders joined my imploring.

My friend wasn’t planning on drinking when he drove out that day. Imagine how different this scenario would have played out if not only did he bring his car, but he was also practiced in getting around without it. There would have been…

no concern over “what happens to my car if I leave it here overnight?”
no sense of chivalry to “not make you pay for my Uber.”
no ego to protect by proving “I’m not that drunk”
no appeal to ignorance by stating, “But I’ve never ridden the bus before; I don’t even know where it goes.”

By letting go of my car and learning to live without it, I’ve found a greater sense of freedom, not just to drink but to be spontaneous in my plans and activities. The more I travel untethered from a vehicle, the more resilient to change I become.