Kicking the Internal Combustion Habit : Cars: It’s not easy to do without a personal automobile in Los Angeles, but there’s satisfaction in dumping the polluting, expensive hulk.

I sold my car last month. I didn’t trade it in for a new model or sell it with the intention of buying another. I sold it for good.

The idea began, I’m ashamed to say, with a bumper sticker. I’ve always regarded people who gather inspiration from a slogan that fits across a fender as simple-minded. But this one had the power of imperative: “Think Globally/Act Locally.” The environmentalist’s “charity begins at home.”

I was riding my bike when I saw it, which made me feel pretty smug, musing on the irony that the vehicle spreading this message was polluting in the process.

Next there was the image on the “MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour.” Essayist Ann Taylor-Fleming was talking about Los Angeles residents and their penchant for driving solo, and the camera pulled back from a single driver at his wheel to reveal a freeway jammed with cars, each occupied by the driver alone.

Next came the report in the Los Angeles Times that the average car gives out its weight in carbon monoxide each year. But what could be done? Everyone knows--it’s axiomatic--”You can’t live without a car in Los Angeles.”

But could I ?

I am a writer. I work at home, in a neighborhood with a bank, post office, Federal Express, market, cafe and laundry within walking distance. I have always driven judiciously--bicycling to shops, restaurants and friends too far to reach on foot but too close to justify a drive. For years I’d begrudged my car, which sat in my driveway nine days out of 10, feeding on insurance premiums and loan payments I could barely afford. It occurred to me that I had the car only out of passive acceptance of the “you-can’t-live-here-without-one” axiom. With utter resignation, I had lamented the “need” to get around at the expense of the air I was traveling through.

Jarred by the slogan on the bumper sticker, the freeway images and the carbon monoxide reports in the press, my conscience kicked in (in league, I admit, with pure pragmatism).

Here was a chance to receive a quick infusion of cash, as well as relief from the burdensome costs involved in maintaining and operating a vehicle I resented for how it forced me to foul what I would rather protect. I won’t try to fudge the fact that I wouldn’t have ditched my car if it would have meant jeopardizing my livelihood; I’m privileged that my economic and ethical interests meet in this way.

Reactions from my friends and family were mixed. Some saluted my initiative. Others questioned my sanity, for good reason. Los Angeles, with its wide streets and long, flat stretches, ought to be a bikeable city. It’s not. Drivers in Los Angeles have as little regard for bicycles as they do for speed limits and stop signs. Further, illusions of the bucolic delights of two-wheel travel can’t hold up to the reality of breathing the fumes of passing vehicles. The city’s few designated bikeways begin and end without discernable logic, and the RTD buses bear down on us like bullying birds of prey. And the volume of broken glass and abundance of buckled pavement make commuting by bike dauntingly risky, even for a cautious, seasoned cyclist.

But I like to think that my decision has had benefits beyond sparing the city my share of smog. In the month since I’ve signed off on my registration, the family-run market up the street has seen a lot more of me, and the chain supermarket a few miles away, much less.

The money I’ve saved in gas has covered the difference in cost between having my wash done weekly by the independent laundress three blocks away, and driving to do it myself at the chain Laundromat several miles from here. I did my holiday shopping in the peace of a pile of mail-order catalogues. Most heartening of all, my landlady’s child and his friends have chalked a hopscotch board on my space in my driveway, turning it into a neighborhood playground.