Abstract: Use of the private car is often viewed as highly problematic with the car implicated in an array of health and environmental harms. Policies to address these problems include provision for day-to-day mobility based on alternatives to the private car such as public transport, walking and cycling. Still, the private car continues as the preferred way to travel in many cities. A deeper understanding of this preference can reveal as yet under explored sites of resistance to alternative transport modes. This paper reports the results of a study which used qualitative methods to record very personal barriers to the uptake of alternative transport. Its focus is on the journey to work in outer suburban Sydney – Australia’s largest city. Applying a novel approach to participant selection, the paper explores the daily practices and perceptions of those who continue to drive, despite having access to viable alternative transport. The research finds that individual decisions to drive are not necessarily motivated by the desire to save time. Barriers to the uptake of alternative transport are more complex than research to date suggests. In proposing that private car use is deeply embedded in ways of navigating modern life, it exposes the way transition away from private car use will only occur in the face of unprecedented disruption to existing ways of 'being' in modern life. This way of conceptualising resistance to alternative transport sheds light on a series of inconsistencies between the expectations of those planning for alternative transport and those anticipated to one day practice its use.