You raised an interesting issue......Uber.
If you calculate the annual cost for owning a car, add the cost of operating it might turn out that Uber is better.
As an old person, having Uber account might be better than owning and driving a car.
If there is a need or a desire to travel, rental might still be less expensive.
We use Uber for my MIL, but it’s not free, nor is it inexpensive. However, it beats the cost of an accident waiting to happen by leaps and bounds. She also has 3 amazing caregivers who, on their day with her, take her anywhere she wants to go. We pay the caregivers out of pocket now, too. The ones the insurance company paid for became very unreliable, which is a shame.
I consider Uber/Lyft to be a very poor substitute for having your own vehicle. Wait times can be long and you have to go outside to get in and out. I can go into my garage and leave without ever stepping outside. I can also unload my purchases in the comfort of my garage. I don't care about the cost. I made financial decisions a long time ago that ensured I would have a comfortable retirement.
A better solution is to have a vehicle with all the safety technology available today. Even the oldest vehicle in our fleet is loaded with safety technology such as adaptive cruise control, lane departure warning, lane keeping assist, blind spot monitoring, rear cross traffic alert, pedestrian detection, automatic emergency braking, rear automatic emergency braking, just to name a few. But too many old people want a land yacht from the 90s because it doesn't have any technology.