Transportation fail

We spent the afternoon, evening, and into the night on July 1 driving from Kansas City to Chicago. What would be a 4 hour bullet train ride in Europe, Japan, or China, became a 10+ hour drive through America's crumbling infrastructure. We hit traffic, construction, and even a 12 minute wait at a tollbooth (at midnight!) on our drive. I will never understand why Americans are so car-obsessed; if we had a real train system we could have relaxed on our trip, moved around at our leisure, and had a much safer journey. Instead we were subject to the poor driving of others, stuck in a seat, and forced to pollute at a much higher rate.