Small steps

I had an interesting discussion with someone the other day. They drive their car to work every day. Their commute is about 5-10min by car, not a challenging commute by any stretch, and it got me thinking. What prevents them from riding, or walking?
Here we have a law that you must wear a helmet when cycling. While I agree with the reasoning for wearing a helmet, it also prevents many people from riding on a daily basis. If you are going to work then your workplace needs to have a setup to allow you to shower, or you have to have the type of employment where this does not matter.
You can always have business attire at work, and change when you get there; but it is hard to deal with the hair/sweat factor.
What are some of the other reasons though? I think it really has a lot to do with people being lazy. We have established patterns and we are simply unwilling to change. Walking or cycling takes longer and we are not willing to give up that extra 5 minutes. In many countries, this is a way of life though. Admittedly, in Vancouver where I live, there are a significant number of hills. It is not an easy ride to many places. It rains a lot here and it can get cool, wet and icky. We do not have a lot of safe, independent trails for cycling. We share the roads with cars and they are not always the nicest about it. I have been pushed off the road, just about clipped (thankfully not been hit yet)....we are an annoyance. Part of that is the car mentality.
Back to my discussion earlier. This person was unwilling to change. The thing is....it is not about cycling every single day, its more about small steps. If you were to modify your working behaviour NOT to commute or use the car just for 1 day a week...what a difference this would make. That is 20% people...a 20% reduction in your environmental fingerprint. Wow, it is that significant. We need to make a difference, we need to change our attitudes about these things...and it is nothing to do with riding a bike. While I would like to see everyone ride, its not about that...its all about changing the patterns in our lives.