Driving has several advantages, but getting stuck in traffic is extremely unpleasant in ways that similar delays on other forms of travel don’t really replicate.
But I have a problem. I'm an introvert and I get fatigued by constant human interaction. I also get fatigued by constant distractions. I really benefit from having some breathing space where I can zone out.
Saying it out load makes it sound reckless and inconsistent, doesn't driving require constant attention? But no, somehow I can zone out drive and drive to my destination completely subconsciously, at least if it's a route I know we'll, like on a commute.
I'm 39 now and I have never caused an accident for what that anecdotle evidence means.
My commutes are my decompress time. I can't do anything during them, and if I could, I wouldn't benefit the same way.
I was having a hard time NOT getting sweaty on my ride into work because humidity is the highest in the morning. And when I wasnt sweating I was getting rained on, or my hands were freezing, or I got chain grease on my pants.
Electric bikes are great, but other than price, it starts to blur between having an electric motorcycle. Especially after you need to don appropriate gear for the commute to stay dry / comfortable. And the motorcycle would have greater range and more use cases.
And at the end of the day, while riding a bike to work is great and I would encourage everyone to try it if they can, do you really think it works without a backup plan? Even people I know who have taking bike commuting pretty seriously didn't do it literally every single day.
But you also don't have to take a 3 hour coach ride because the driver or other staff's union is striking. It's just you and your car.
Now that’s not universal, but I really do budget 3-4 hours extra for some trips because holiday traffic is just that bad in my area.
Fuel taxes don’t even come close to paying for our road networks while rail is lumping all these costs together on a per trip basis.
If you want an emergency services vehicles to get to your house you need a road anyway.
If you want buses and coaches to function, you need roads.
If you want to transport a bootload of stuff more than three times a year you're financially better off paying for a car than renting.
If yor kids have school anywhere that isn't walking/cycling distance from your house, then you need a car, or two.
If you have a job, and don't want to be beholden to a very local employer, you likely need a car. Except if you live close to a train station and your job is close to another one. And except in the last five years, when some jobs can now be remote.
If you want to go anywhere that a train doesn't go, you need a car, probably. Which is everywhere outside of extremely high density urban areas that can afford an underground rail system.
You need any of those things to be true for a road to be needed. You likely need a car for all but the first two. Cars and roads are valuable. I don't see how that's debatable.
Trains are now location-specific optimisations where we know we have hotspots of usefulness, where it's worth laying track and having massive investment as enough people will use that route.
Just as a circuit-switched phone call is a better connection, but packet-switched is better overall, and cheaper, so are trains and cars.
You also have several objectively false statements here such as:
“If yor kids have school anywhere that isn't walking/cycling distance from your house, then you need a car, or two.” Except 100’s of millions of people currently live further than “cycling distance” from their kids school and don’t own a car.
Frankly cars didn’t exist until very recently and society was fine without them.