The article "The Car Is Not the Future: On the Myth of Motorized Freedom" critiques the dominant cultural and urban reliance on cars, arguing that the notion of driving as essential to adulthood and freedom is a manufactured myth rather than a necessity. Historically, streets functioned as communal spaces for walking and socializing until automakers launched campaigns blaming pedestrians for accidents, a strategy that redefined public spaces to prioritize cars and led to restrictive infrastructure like highways and parking lots dominating cities. This shift was reinforced through policy, law, and social norms, making car ownership almost a requirement for civic participation, despite significant hidden costs such as environmental damage and social isolation. The article highlights experiments that challenge car-centric urban design. For example, cities that removed traffic signals saw more cautious driver behavior and fewer accidents, and Sweden’s 1967 national switch from left- to right-side driving led to a marked drop in traffic accidents immediately following the change, due to heightened driver attention and mutual awareness rather than control mechanisms. These examples suggest that less engineering and control can encourage more responsible use of streets, enabling cities to be designed around people rather than cars. Economically, the true costs of car usage are masked by subsidies and socialized harms, making driving artificially cheap and obscuring its full impact. Philosopher André Gorz, in his 1973 essay, critiqued car culture as an ideology that promises freedom but in reality enslaves individuals through debt and dependency while fragmenting communal life into isolated activities separated by long distances. There is a glimmer of change: recent studies indicate Generation Z is less car-centric than previous generations, with younger people delaying or forgoing driver's licenses and treating cars more as necessities than status symbols. Legal reforms, such as decriminalizing jaywalking in places like New York and California, signal a broader shift recognizing street design and laws historically favored cars to the detriment of pedestrians, disproportionately affecting minority communities. Ultimately, the article questions why society continues to design cities and lives around isolating, polluting machines when alternatives exist. It calls for reconsidering urban planning and cultural attitudes toward cars, emphasizing reclaiming streets for people and the environment to build more integrated, healthy, and equitable communities.