When you put your foot hard on the accelerator, there's a feeling of instant power.
Because the car is so intimately connected with our limbs, eyes and ears, we almost feel that it's us who are the source of that power. And not the sunlight used by algae and other ancient plant forms millions of years ago.
It's quite incredible that decaying plant matter, sometimes trapped and cooked in the Earth's crust, would become a mobile energy source for a species of intelligent bipeds.
To get a sense of the power available, a barrel of oil has the equivalent labour-power of an average human doing 10 years of physical work (if they worked an eight-hour day, five days a week). No wonder having that power at your feet is thrilling.
Status and self-esteem
Mastering the skills of driving a car makes us feel pretty cool.
An existential psychologist might argue that driving a car is part of the natural human impulse to deny our deaths by participating in something bigger than ourselves. I suspect they're right.
Those same psychologists would also point out that many people derive their self-esteem from fitting in with the prevailing worldview.
Cars, though under challenge, are a huge part of our modern culture. They give you status. A new car purchase (even if second-hand) elicits positive comments from family and friends.
In a society where it's becoming difficult to own a house, you can at least aspire to own a nice car.
Few of us are immune to the cosy comfort of slipstreaming in the popular worldview. Our fragile self-esteems can make it hard to go against the grain.
The freedom
No one, not even the greenest of greenies, could deny the joy we can get from hopping into a car and driving to one of Northland's almost deserted beaches.
It's a bitter irony that the car, the source of so much of the world's carbon emissions, is the enabler of our near-spiritual appreciation of beaches and other "untouched" landscapes.
How hard to give that up?
The freedom of movement which the car allows must contribute to the feeling that there are no barriers to what we can do with our lives.
This is a modern sensibility. Though Covid may be teaching us a new respect for living within limits.
Conversations and bonding
Some of my best memories are driving in a car with other people, like a family road trip when everyone's in sync and looking forward to arriving at the destination.
Or four teenage boys laughing and talking shit with the music turned up loud driving around Whangārei in the 80s with no particular direction or plan. The video for the Smashing Pumpkins song "1979" captures that vibe perfectly.
American movies often get this right. Young people in a car, away from school, parents and other societal constraints, is lots of fun.
It can also involve silliness that can and does end in tragedy.
More positively, I recall some of the best one-on-one conversations I've had with friends or my kids being in a car.
There's something about two people buckled into the front seats of a car, not directly looking at each other, that opens up the verbal communication channels.
Alone on the open road
Then there's driving on your own... the ultimate indulgence (carpooling be damned). Always with music playing loud.
An obsessive music lover knows how good this is: your favourite of-the-moment CD playing, the scenery going past, making stuttering attempts at singing the lyrics and tapping your hand on the steering wheel.
For me, in all seriousness, this can border on a transcendent experience.
And yet, for all the undoubted good times to be had in a car, we shouldn't be too attached.
These experiences, which go beyond the necessity of getting to work or the kids to school, can be enjoyed without defining us.
And without us being threatened by sharing the road with someone on a bicycle.
