Lord, give me the confidence of a driver in a pedestrian zone.

Most American cities are designed for cars. Well, I should say that they’re designed for cars *now* — cities used to be a mix of everything from bikes to horses to pedestrians until people got cars and demanded they be able to drive them right up to the burger stand instead of parking and walking the unbearable three blocks.

As a result, many cities were bulldozed and rebuilt for car infrastructure, a move that has made American cities not only supremely unwalkable but also unreasonably expensive to maintain — which might explain why your drive to work every morning involves ruining your suspension with potholes.

At the time, this was crazy. Now, however, we’re just kinda used to it. So much so, in fact, that anytime we’re told we *can’t* drive somewhere we feel like someone is infringing on our basic right to burn gasoline.

They have this same psychosis over in the U.K., it turns out. At a half marathon, one woman saw a closed street and decided, “They probably don’t mind if I drive here, so long as I do it slowly.” You’re never going to believe this, but they minded.