I was nervous—desperately nervous—about becoming car-free. But eight months ago our car wa

s hit, and the damage was so bad it had to be given up. And that s when I had an idea. Why not just give up having a car at all？ The more I thought about it, the more sensible it seemed. We have a railway station behind our house, a tube station 10 minutes walk away, and a bus stop at the end of the street. If any family in Britain could live without a car, I reasoned, then surely we were that family？ But my new car-free plan wasn t shared by my family. My teenage daughters were shocked. How would they get to and from university？ (A bus, I suggested.)What would their friends think about our family being "too poor to afford a car" ？ (I wasn t that bothered what they thought, and I suggested they take the same approach.) My friends, too, were astonished at our plan. Wasn t a car essential, when you had children？ What would happen if someone got seriously ill overnight and needed to go to hospital (erm...an ambulance？). People smiled, as though this was another of my mad ideas, before saying they were sure I d soon realise that a car wasn t a luxury, it was a necessity. Eight months on, I wonder whether we 11 ever own a car again. The idea that you "have" to own a car, especially if you live in a city, is all in the mind. I live—and many other people do too—in a community that has never been better served by public transport, and yet car ownership has never been higher. Do I really need a car？ The answer, for me, turned out to be no, and Im a lot richer because I dared to ask the question.

The author decided to live a car-free life______.

A．after his car was damaged beyond repair

B．after he was hurt in a terrible car accident

C．because maintaining a car was too costly

D．because the traffic jam was too much for him