Discuss the Advantages and Disadvantages of Owning a Car Essay

Everything has two sides to it, and there is no exception to owning a car. People can name just as many merits of owning a car as demerits of doing it. Apparently, convenience is one of the most important benefits that a car owner is looking for when spending huge sums of money for keeping one. Public transportation has developed rapidly in recent years in Vancouver. Yet, with the even faster expansion of Greater Vancouver Region, Vancouverites are expected to travel farther on a daily basis and there are always some places where you need to switch between trains, buses and seabus to arrive. Compared with driving, using public transport is time-consuming and tedious, esp. when you have luggage with you. Another benefit that driving brings you is to expand your life horizon to the extent that any other kind of transport can’t reach. Before coming to Canada, I lived about 200 kilometers from the world’s second largest desert: Taklimakan Desert. What is fascinating about the ‘sea of death’ is that a unique type of tree called diversi-formed leaves pillow have been flourishing in the heart of desert for thousands of years. The trees are said to be able to stand for 3 thousand years after dying, and lie for another 3 thousand years before rotting away. With a powerful Toyota 4700, my family used to visit the magnificent desert every year and are always stricken with breath-taking beauty of ‘Land of death and life’. In spite of these benefits that owning a car can bring us, the negative influence of driving to environment is also evident. Because cars are often single-occupied, driving means a huge more amount of gas emission than using public transport. In addition, keeping a car also requires constant extra expenses on fuel, parking and maintenance, let alone the considerable payment for car purchase and accidental damages. Things could be even worse when you fail to obey traffic rules and get penalties to pay for. Taking all these pros and cons into consideration, people often find it difficult to choose one over the other. Many people choose to drive for the convenience and freedom from harassments of hurrying to and waiting for public transport. Meanwhile, there are still more who enjoy a short time of relaxation on trains or buses instead of struggling to concentrate on driving after a tiring day.