I mainly have my car because I really like driving. I live in a big city with good public transport, but things are still quite a bit faster using the car aside from rush hour.

I always see pics and media of gridlock traffic in downtown cores. Why even bother?

If I lived somewhere like Vancouver or Montreal or Toronto etc. I wouldn't even have a car. More hassle than benefit in dense areas like that.

Similar here for sure. Lots of "Green" incentives. Works fine in larger cities, but most places our infrastructure in lower populated areas is lacking for sure.

Gas prices are their own thing here. But that is partly on purpose as governments want to nudge people to take other means of transport.

Yes the war is the excuse for our high fuel prices as well, which is killer for me travelling rurally. I'm sure our pricing is still better than most places in Europe though.

Exacerbated even more by the Ukraine invasion and for a while the blown up gas pipeline in the Baltic.