Speaking from a US standpoint, the public transit sucks. The main issue where I'm at is lack of bus stops, and the bus is never on time. I'd have to walk down a highway (not interstate) to get to the bus stop, then it might not even arrive on time.

Cars are faster, most of the time. However, they still suck. Traffic in dense areas is heavy at almost all times of day where anyone is active. It's really a failure on the US government why people dont take public transit as much.

In the US, the state of public transit outside of a handful of (very expensive) cities is significantly slower and less reliable than taking a car. I would pin the reason for this on the shift of people outside of urban areas into suburban ones, and the lobbying power of the automotive industry to convince the government and citizens alike that cars were the right choice.

If public transit is the fastest option in the area, people do choose to take it! That's the case for me too in the past couple of cities I've lived in. But most cities have a long way to go before they get there.

Aside from just talking about this from a convenience angle, a message that might help explain the issues with car dependency is how much more it costs! People that are more hesitant about public services might be easier to convince with a cost-based argument. This is a great video explaining the actual cost of car ownership.

I think most covered it all why they use a car.

I just want to add that it all depends on where you live. I don't know what you mean by "most". I would say most in cities with good bike lanes like Paris and Amsterdam would say most take the bike, or cities with great public transport like Tokyo would say most take public transport. If you live in a place like USA where it is dangerous to walk and the public transport is almost none existing then most would take the car. I think New York has ok public transport. But I don't know, when I was there were sandy coming in so all of the subways were closed off.

Answer in Progress did a video on this yesterday

There is a substantial YouTube library of breakdowns on why we (usually North Americans) continually choose cars.

https://youtu.be/-cjfTG8DbwA

https://youtu.be/j4s9WDDRE2A

https://youtu.be/V3yXSD2O95E

https://youtu.be/n94-_yE4IeU

There are so many.

The biggest reason is my local public transportation. I live near a large city in northern West Virginia. The only bus that comes close to my address runs twice a day. Once at 7am and then again at 5pm. On top of that it would be a 20 minute walk, 10 minute bike ride, or 5 minute car ride to the bus stop. If I had to I could make it work but I can't get groceries after work because I would miss the last bus by the time I got off work and finished my shopping. This means I would have to go out on Saturday at 7am and do my shopping and then catch the bus back at 5. Add on top of that having two kids and it's just impossible. Unfortunately a lot of the US is like this. I wouldn't mind if I had to pay more and my local government put more effort into public transit but that seems to be low on their list of priorities.

I will say that electric bikes and self driving cars in the future may change everything for the better.

I live in San Francisco, so decent public transportation. But even then, it doesn't run 24 hours. If you want late night fast food, unless you live in NYC, you either need a car or get to pay absurd prices for door dash to deliver cold food.

If you live anywhere outside of the inner city, public transport gets slow really quick.

I live 5 miles out from the city im WV. I would need to walk/bike up and down hills for 2 miles at a minimum just to get to a local transit stop.

Convenience. Directness. I live in NYC in an outer borough. To get to the neighborhood next door it's a 45 minute series of bus rides with the wait or... A 5 minute drive.

Now add in I have a family and try to make a toddler wait for the bus and xfer just to get somewhere.

My main mode of transportation is by bike (I’m Dutch so that’s not surprising). For most trips a bicycle is much faster than a car. I only use my car if need to go a long distance or if I need to transport something too big to transport by bike. I only need to fill up my car with gas once or twice a year.

In the US, public transit is almost universally unavailable. If it is available, it's a massive luxury (or strictly necessary, like NYC).