London has abysmal transport situation - any time I needed to traverse through city, it was 3+ hours of buses and trains/subway mix. Of course doing the same with car would be even worse.
Imagine when people don't live in such shitholes, and spend weekends travelling ie to nature or mountains or culture or history or whatever, on non-congested roads. Heck, imagine going to nature even evenings after work, ie for rock climbing. Public transport would be 2-3x that travel time, if possible at all. Also, much more expensive compared to a single car drive, even when accounting all taxes, maintenance and purchasing costs of a car.
Thats how most of Europe lives. City center folks can keep their car-free existence, just please for god's sake don't force it down everybody else's throats like that's the only way to live.
Some people would happily lose half of paycheck to avoid such life, exactly because they spent part of their lives in city centers and know very well what lifestyle they reject, if they can and can afford it. Quadruple that for families with small kids, like my own.
I don't understand how you can spend 3+ hours getting around London. I live in Bristol and when we go to visit London, it takes about 3 hours including the train all the way from Bristol to London. Getting from A to B in London is probably 30-40 minutes tops using the underground.
> Thats how most of Europe lives.
THIS. Europe doesn't end on Paris. People visit huge metropolies and base their judgement on this, which really skews the perspective.