Cars are great for mental health. They let people access a lot more things in less time. And plenty of people drive cars who are in fine physical and mental health.
They don’t actually allow you to access more things in less time. They reshape cities to spread things further out so you spend the same time accessing the same things, but you get there by sitting in traffic rather than walking or riding a bike.
When I used to live in the suburbs it would take me 15 minutes to drive to the supermarket. Now I can walk there in 5 minutes. Walking is faster and healthier than driving.
>They don’t actually allow you to access more things in less time. They reshape cities to spread things further out so you spend the same time accessing the same things, but you get there by sitting in traffic rather than walking or riding a bike
You're equivocating. In some vague, general sense, over a long period of time, cars might make it harder to access things. For any given person at any given moment, having a car gives greater access to more things in less time.
Cars don't reshape cities, people do. It's a deliberate choice, and there are plenty of cities around the world that have not gone anywhere near to the extremes that American cities have.
"Plenty" may be in good health, but since the median person in the US is NOT in fine physical health, we can confidently say that "most" (by far) people who drive cars are not in fine health, and the situation is trending worse, much worse.