There never was a vote to make it legal or illegal. And it was widely hailed as a great idea at the time. It was considered the best way for large cities to dig out from under the literal mountains of horse shit they were drowning in and that was polluting the ground water and killing children and adults alike from disease. Plus it gave people far more freedom to move about faster and father than they had by foot, horse, or train. Like it or not, the internal combustion engine has given you, personally, everything good and bad that you have at this very moment in time.

But, like most great human ideas, there are always unintended consequences no one sees until they happen.

I actually like driving for the most part, and I think that I'd like it even more if people who weren't forced to drive weren't driving, and if the people driving were well-trained and medically cleared as safe to drive.

If we had those things I could do a hundred miles an hour on the highway everywhere. It would be awesome.

The average person only owns a fraction of a car, but I do believe that existing on a street either inside or around cars is the highest risk an average person is being subjected to on an average day.

Keep in mind that only a small number of privileged people own a car, but everyone has to deal with them and are subjected to their risks.

As an American who visited Copenhagen post-covid, the public transport is amazing.

In a train? That seems very unlikely though not impossible.

You can't generalize about public transport across the whole of the USA. It's very variable between different cities, and some have pretty good systems.