Cars are the most important part of life in the United States. Without a car most people feel that they are poor. And even if a person is poor he doesn't feel really poor when he has a car. Henry Ford was the man who first started making cars in large numbers. He probably doesn't know how much the car was going to affect American culture. The car made the United States a nation on wheels. And it helped to make the United States what it is today. There are many reasons that the car became so popular in the United States. First of all, the country was a large one and Americans like to move around in it. The car provides the most comfortable and cheapest from of transportation. With a car people can go to any place without spending a lot of money. The second reason that cars are popular is the fact that the United States never really developed an efficient and inexpensive form of public transportation. Long distance trains have never been as common in the United States as they are in the other parts of the world. Nowadays there is good system of air service provided by planes. But it is too expensive to be used frequently. The third reason is the most important one. The American spirit of independence is what really made cars popular. Americans don't like to wait for a bus, or a train or even a plane. They don't like to have to follow an exact schedule. A car gives them the freedom to plan their own time. And this is the freedom that Americans want most to have. The gas shortage  has caused a big problem for Americans. But the answer will not be a bigger system of public transportation. The real solution  will have to be a new kind of car, one that does not use so much gas. The real solution to the gas shortage problem is   _
to make less cars to make gas-saving cars to develop a good transportation system to develop train service