Alistair McGowan is an actor/impressionist/writer. He is 43, single and lives in South West London. This is an edited version of Alistair's contribution to a chapter about people who live car-free in the forthcoming book The Four Wheel Detox. In Impressions of a Car-Free Chooser, Alistair McGowan writes about why he has never owned a car, and hopes that he never will.

"I was brought up in Evesham, Worcestershire. As a kid, we drove everywhere as there was next to no (and is now even less) public transport in the area. Holidays to Bournemouth or Wales, First Division football in Coventry, theatre in Stratford, Cheltenham or Worcester and coaches to London for theatre trips and sightseeing. I went off to University at Leeds in the eighties. In those days, no self-respecting student had a car, so we used the magnificent Metrobuses and Metrotrains to get around the city and, indeed, most of Yorkshire. Coming then to London, for three more years of study, the world of the London Underground opened up for me. And I was hooked.

I still think the tube (for all its overcrowding and delays) is by far the best mass transit system in the world. I can't believe I've actually written that sentence. How dull do I sound? But, here's a thing : why is it considered dull to talk and enthuse about trains, trams, buses, tubes and yet to extol the virtues of a car is considered macho? They are both ways of getting from A to B. Both just hunks of metal and fibreglass. The car seems nothing but a curse to me. Okay, when I go home to Worcestershire, it is a blessing. But, of course, if there were fewer cars, maybe the public transport system in the area would have been better. People would have demanded it. Used it.

We are lucky in London. We really can live without cars. Outside any of our major cities it is almost impossible thanks to Dr Beeching and endless car-obsessed governments. But we can all use cars less. Once any reliance on the car is established, it seems, in the mind of the driver, to become the only way to get around. I don't know whether it's habit or a desire to get your money's worth from the ever-depreciating hunk of metal and fibreglass parked in the drive or in the road but it seems that once you've you got a car, even the shortest of journeys are undertaken in it. The chip shop, the corner shop, the DVD shop, school. The thought of going anywhere under a mile by car should be a complete anathema to anyone able-bodied. It certainly is to me. We've even become a culture of people who drive to the gym to exercise. Or drive to take a walk in the country. Or drive to the swimming pool. Or the exercise class.

The joy of walking, the benefits of "the daily constitutional" as the Georgians and Victorians would have it, seem to have been completely lost and forgotten. If we walked to the shops, for instance, the health benefits would negate the need to then drive to the gym to walk/run on a machine for an hour before driving home. You save money too. On membership fees. And petrol. And you have more time ! Exercise becomes a part of the rest of your life. And the car has changed the shape of the human body as much as if not more than the gym. Not only is the four-wheeled monster a huge contributor to the obesity problem, I believe those who are still slim-ish but who drive everywhere have changed shape. Take a look at people from behind. Basically, they have no arse. The sitting position of the driver has taken away the muscles in the gluteus maximus which are constantly activated by walking and cycling. Men and women are becoming concave.

I have never owned a car and it is one of my ambitions to try and get through life without ever having one. I have a good hybrid mountain bike which I use regularly. Cycling in London I find probably less dangerous than cycling in the country - drivers are more used to seeing cyclists weaving in and out on city streets and on the improving network of cycle paths than they are on Cornish country roads (where, incidentally, I have rarely felt more threatened on a bike). As long as you don't race in the City, I think you can ride fairly safely. Riding around London at the speed of a bike, you can take things in much more - really absorb the world about you. Whether in the town or the countryside, you feel a part of the world you are literally going through. You are not just a voyeur. Of course, I take taxis too. It's a carbon footprint but it's also a car-sharing scheme, if you like. It means there are fewer cars being built, I suppose. Taking taxis can certainly add up financially. I worked out in my early stand-up days, when I toyed with getting a car to help the nightly trudge around London - and indeed, later, the country, that it was always going to be cheaper to use trains and taxis than to incur all the extra expenses involved in running a car: road tax, insurance, maintenance, petrol, parking etc. The only time I have yearned for a car has been at Christmas time. But then again, as on Bank Holidays, the roads are jammed with people trying to get away. The car again has instilled that notion into people. When we have time off, we must get away. And why is that ever a news story ? Jams on the motorways over bank holiday weekend tailbacks of fifteen miles reaching as far as junction predictable. It's not news! It happens every time ! Why report it ? Why drive away ? Why not relax where we are ?

Jean Luc Godard made a film in the late 60s about the horror of the weekend away in the car "le Weekend" and who can forget Victor Meldrew's episode when he's stuck in traffic for a whole day? Or Seinfeld's similar trip to hell in the jams of New York? It's always been the same. As my physio recently said to me, when people arrive late saying "Sorry, Ed. The traffic was bad" His response is now, "When was it ever good ?"

But, yes, Christmas. Well, Boxing Day, really. It's impossible without a car to do anything on Boxing Day. And in a relationship, it means spending the whole Christmas with one family or the other. Mobility between the two - if they are at opposite ends of the country or even county - is impossible. And that decision of "where we go" becomes even harder and even more unpopular with the losing family.

But other than that day - that one day a year - I don't miss having a car. I don't wish I had one. Ever. I don't envy it. I don't want it. And, now, on top of all that, I feel better about myself environmentally. I've always been aware of the damage cars do to the planet. To our bodies. To our backs, to our bottoms, to our lungs. I rarely get to sit in jams. As a control-freak that's my idea of hell - suddenly being at the whim of all that traffic, not just beholden to one's own car but to the position of everyone else's. The ultimate claustrophobia.

When I tell people I don't have a car the most common response is "How do you get to the supermarket?" And the answer is that I don't. I walk to the local shops. I eat less junk because I'm tempted to buy only what I can carry and I support local shops. It makes you feel somehow like you're living out of society. Living by your own rules. It's more freedom than you can ever imagine! More freedom than a car can bring. Join the non-car club. It's easier than you think."

A full version of Alistair's article will appear in a chapter about people who live carfree in the forthcoming book, The Four Wheel Detox.