Death to the four-wheel killing machine!

Jay's death on Wednesday strengthens my resolve to join the 'Death to the Car' revolution. As some of you know, I've been pretty anti-car for quite awhile (oddly coinciding with when the bike became my primary means of transportation). As I expect, most of you will tell me to piss off - that cars are what made North America great (great for what?), are the epitome of personal freedom (freedom from what?), that it's a necessity for me and my family (necessity for what?), yadda, yadda, yadda. Well if you're in this group, fuck you. They've killed and maimed too many people I've known and loved (how many makes it unacceptable?). We freak out about the horrific situation in the Middle East while there are 3.3 million injuries, 2.2 million permanent injuries and 45,000 car-related deaths in North America each year? No one even thinks about these statistics. Personal vehicles have aided in making North American society the fucked up mess that it is.

But I want to know how all these yokels that shouldn't even be breeding get to drive? Any mouth-breathing troglodyte gets to own a car with only having to pass a practical test that any idiot could pass with a little practice once - and never have to get tested again, ever, unless they kill or come close to killing someone? Geez - medical conditions be damned! Professional drivers need to get medical tests every five years (but they also don't need to be tested for proficiency again), so how are cars different from tractor units? They're still a couple thousand pounds of killing potential...it's harder to get a gun, but really - what's the difference? In the hands of the wrong people - both are lethal. We've all lost someone we know either in a car accident or by being hit by a car. We consider this an unfortunate consequence of normal life. I find it unacceptable. Sometime in the past, driving a car moved from being a privilege to a right. I can't quite figure out when it happened, but I'm pretty sure it was around the time that the auto manufacturers got in bed with the oil companies and the US and Canadian governments. After that all restrictions were off - removal of any sense of social culpability or personal responsibility for our actions soon followed.

Why are the governments so slow to implement cell phone use laws while driving? They penalize people for drinking and driving, but daily I see people driving like complete fucktards, not paying attention to anything in front of them save the terribly important conversation they're having on their cell phone about what their plans are for the evening. It's all so infuriating. I see it endlessly everyday as a pedestrian and cyclist. And it's only getting worse as the roads get more congested and the vehicles get bigger.

Part of the reason civil society is going to hell in a handbasket is because car culture further disassociates people from what's really going on around them. How much can you absorb about the environment around you when you're whizzing by it at 80kph, stereo blaring, windows rolled up, A/C blasting? For some reason, putting someone in the driver's seat changes the most considerate person into a complete asshole. Some neuron switch occurs that suddenly gives everyone a God complex - that their time is of highest importance and that extra 15 seconds it takes to safely navigate a busy intersection or wait for something else to move in gridlock traffic is reason enough to flip out and blow a gasket. What's even worse are those that feel they need to show that cyclist or pedestrian 'a little bit of the fear of god' because they inconvenienced the raging lunatic behind the wheel by 0.5 seconds. If they were rational, they'd realize that the bike or sidewalk is shuttling people along from point A to point B just as effectively as their noisy, belching piece of shit. I can't count how many times I've had someone yell out the window of their car, "get off the road and onto the sidewalk, where you belong!" What driver's training school did these people go to? Oh right - you don't need any training to pass a driver's test. You are able to color in some circles with a pencil on a piece of paper (careful - don't poke your eye out with that thing!), and maybe know how to spell your own name.

I admit, I'm guilty of aggression as well. I become very agitated behind the wheel, and I certainly don't like what I've become when I get out of the driver's seat and analyze my behavior. It's all very messed up. What a weird psychological shift the car does to us.

Add to that that car culture in North America is directly or indirectly responsible for a large part of our environmental degradation, crime, resource depletion, suburban sprawl, obesity, noise pollution and innumerable other problems, and it moves me to want to do something drastic to get people to see the folly of this horrible addiction we have to cars. NASCAR? My point is made.

Maybe we all need to take a hard look at ourselves, our self-absorption, our god complexes, how we plan, build and navigate our communities, how we absorb the world around us and realize that yes, maybe we do need to slow down a bit to get a better sense that we are part of a larger reality that doesn't go away when we confine ourselves in our vehicles. We need to get out our cars and live a more sustainable, less dependent lifestyle. I say - break the shackles of your metal prison deathtrap! Death to the car! Vive la revolution!