I live in a third world Asian country. The public transport in the city is terrible. There are very few train stops and they move slowly.

You may have to wait for multiple train cars to come as there are so many people and when you finally get on one you are so jam packed that you literally can’t take a deep breath.

Ride shares cost as much as owning a car without the benefit of ownership. Also taking the bus here has long lines at rush hour and you may wait for over an hour to get onto a bus.

So having a car while it’s not necessary, I don’t think I can be blamed for it. It will literally save me hours of waiting for available public transportation.

The last time my wife and I took the train, while wearing masks, we both got Covid. We were vaccinated and had a booster and still got it. That alone made us decide to not take the train anymore as it’s too risky to do so.

We can pay maybe 6x as much on a ride share , but if we get Covid we are both out of work for at least a week. Not to mention the suffering.