Yes, but in the US, most people need a car...there are no buses for me where I live and unless you live in a big city like NYC or Chicago public transportation is lacking.
If you live in the country in the UK you do need a car really as there is virtually no public transport, but most cities have a reasonable service and it's free for seniors.
I'm not out in the country at all here and there are only a handful of buses and I don't even know where their stop is...not by me, that's for sure...I'd have to walk 5 miles or more to find one and then it probably comes every hour and doesn't even go where I want to go. Also, there really is no way but by car to get to my daughter's house...plane, but I would still have to get to the airport here...a cab, I guess and instead of a 3 hr drive it would take me all day to get there, even though it's only 157 miles, the flight in the puddle jumper takes an hour.
The UK is a tiny island so things are different there we also walk a lot more than in the US I believe?
True!! I drive to the store thats a half a mile away. But I'm lazy, maybe I could eat more if I walked to get my food.
I walk into Worcester daily usually it's a mile and often to my daughter Caroline across the river which is 3 miles.
Lol, Ken...my mail is at the end of my street and I only get it when I'm out at the store or something, then I stop on my way back to my house.
I quit driving 9 or 10 years ago simply because I couldn't afford to keep up my car any longer. My family is full of GM mechanics. My car was a Ford and no one wanted to work on it. Used to be, mechanics could FIX stuff, not just replace parts that an electronic screen told them to.
True that having a car can be expensive, Ike...insurance, repairs, gas. I finally had to get rid of my old Nissan Altima in 2012 because it kept dying on me, and every timeI had it fixed it was $500! Must be the magic number...after about 3 of those and the car still being crappy....A/C only worked full blast. Trunk would not stay open unless you held it with one hand, was afraid I would chop myself in half one day. Finally my kids helped me get my new Chevy Cruze, they put the money down and each contributes to the payment but insurance is still mine to pay and it's higher here in California!
When I was 17, I had a drivers license but no car. Dad let me use his on occasion. My gramps lived about 4 miles out of town then. One day he was driving to town on some errand and drove through some thick smoke blowing across the HI way from a grass fire in a field. A fire truck was stopped on the road, hidden by the smoke. Gramps hit it, but was going slow enough that he wasn't hurt. So, his license was taken away and whenever he needed to make a trip to town, he called me. I enjoyed our together time. Usually, he would have me stop at a liquor store so he could get a jug of his drink of choice. He always made me promise, "Don't tell that ol' woman", meaning granny. Eventually he got his license back.
They'd kick me out of Maine if I didn't have a car. My wife and I each have one because it's not unusual for me to drive up north to the land while she stays at home, or goes elsewhere.
I guess that confirms our stereotype of nobody walking anywhere in the US, though the end of my driveway is only a few yards from the beginning so not worth driving, plus the mail is delivered to the house through the letterbox for the dog to sort out