Before we had children, my wife and I once spent one of the best stretches of time together on a road trip From Washington, D.C. to Connecticut. Over the seven-hour journey, we listened to nearly a season’s worth of episodes of the NPR podcast Serial back-to-back. We debated theories and pondered motives against the backdrop of late summer New England greenery. To this day, it remains an incredibly fond memory of our pre-parenting lives.
Road trips like ours still capture our collective imagination, but they are hardly representative of the typical driving experience. The average American drives more than 1,000 miles every month, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration. And much of the time Americans spend commuting is spent alone. Commute times have been steadily climbing for years, and, even with more Americans working from home, we’re driving more than we did before the pandemic.
I have no philosophical objections to driving. It is an i…
