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imomusAl Quaeda is a paper tiger. Al Quaeda is a minor threat. There is an organisation -- a way of organising society -- that kills more than a million people per year worldwide. Let's call it Al Careda: motorised private transport. The car.
Let's not even look at the way the car contributes to global warming and pollution or causes wars in parts of the world with oil, or how the car turns vital, lively public space into dead, armoured, private space, or how cars make their drivers aggressive, fat or unfit. Let's just look at how many people cars physically kill and maim by hitting them, crushing them, mangling them, and throwing them to the ground.
According to the BBC, the World Health Organisation and the World Bank, 1.2 million people are killed in road traffic accidents around the world each year. Another 50 million people are injured. Traffic accidents, not terrorism, are the leading cause of death for Americans under the age of 35. And things are getting worse. People are buying more and more cars. On current trends, by 2020 road traffic accidents will have risen by 60%, outstripping stroke and HIV as the main causes of preventable death.
Politicians are not decrying the car as 'evil'. There is little talk of danger, of 'Al Careda' or 'Carmageddon', and even less of measures to be taken. Politicians have not declared a 'War on Carism'. They have not invaded Munich or Detroit, or sent occupying armies to Nagoya. The WHO report contains a few mealy-mouthed and vague comments from Bush and Blair. But no politicians are curbing our civil liberties to fight Al Careda, despite the fact that you and I are thousands of times more likely to die prematurely due to cars than due to Islamist terrorism.
In fact, the spread of the car is an example of the spinelessness of politicians and the toothlessness of democracy. A machine is invented and introduced without much foresight or political debate. It seems like a good idea at the time. It seems to be about technology, not politics, health or morality. Some states require men with red flags to walk in front of cars when they're first introduced, but by and large everyone is excited about the machine. No elections are fought on the question 'Whether or not we should have cars'. The 'democratic' angle on cars is not how to get rid of them, but how to make them affordable to the common man. Carless places -- Venice, the island of Sark, Alicudi -- are that way for topographic rather than moral reasons. Very few voices against carism are raised. Even now, when the true cost of cars to the planet can to be calculated, radical political solutions don't seem to be proposed, because they don't seem to be possible.
'The WHO-World Bank joint report sets out specific measures aimed at reducing deaths from road traffic accidents,' the BBC reports. 'These include providing affordable public transportation and safe crossings and paths for pedestrians. It also suggests that communities should be planned so that residents do not have to travel far to go to work, school or local shops. In addition, it says more could be done to separate different road users, like lorry drivers or those doing the school run.'
These are pathetically small and unimaginative solutions. In a democracy, attitude matters. We can start the long march towards a car-free world by changing the prevalent attitude to cars. We should create an aura of unacceptability around cars, a car taboo. We need to draw people's attention to the toxicity of cars. We need to counter all the careless car-love, all the slick advertising, and make the idea that cars are toxic thinkable and sayable.
I'll say it right here. Cars are ugly. I hate them. I hate the look of them, the politics of them, the noise they make, their smell. I'd be delighted to see more cars in cities getting scratched, defaced, daubed with slogans, burned out. Cars deserve public vituperation much more than terrorists do. Cars are an idea that has had its time. They're past their sell-by date and they're damaging the world and the things I love.
A car cannot be cool. The world would be better off without cars. I will vote for people who are anti-car (unless they're Nader and my vote just helps an oil president). I want politicians to be proposing car-free cities, car-free days and car-free weeks, and eventually car-free nations and car-free years. I want to see Barcelona ban the carrida the way it has just banned the corrida. I want car bans to expand at the rate that smoking bans are currently expanding. I want to hear rhetoric about cars that matches rhetoric about terrorists. I want to see a big statue of Henry Ford toppled, to massive applause from freedom-loving people all over the world.
I want to hear about the complete separation of cars from cities. I want to see proposals from architecture students to put cars in underground tubes and tunnels. I want car drivers to be troglodytes. I want to see car drivers paying the actual price their cars cost the world, not just the cost of the metal and the gas. I want computers to take over all the functions of driving, not just parking, and I want cars to evolve into public spaces. For instance, when cars are snarled in tailbacks, I want little doors between their noses and tails to open automatically, turning the rows of private cars into a trainlike public space with a corridor. I want to see people getting up from their car seats, stretching, and walking up and down that corridor, looking at other people, buying a cup of green tea from a trolley.
I want to hear some acknowledgement from politicians that it's the things that everyone does, the things that pass for normal, that are the truly toxic and 'evil' things in the world today, not a few marginal guerilla movements or rogue states. If you want to see an 'evil' person, a person likely to wreak havoc and cause death, take a photo of yourself as you walk towards your car.
I dedicate this blog entry to Mary Hansen of Stereolab, a victim of terrorism.
Let's not even look at the way the car contributes to global warming and pollution or causes wars in parts of the world with oil, or how the car turns vital, lively public space into dead, armoured, private space, or how cars make their drivers aggressive, fat or unfit. Let's just look at how many people cars physically kill and maim by hitting them, crushing them, mangling them, and throwing them to the ground.
According to the BBC, the World Health Organisation and the World Bank, 1.2 million people are killed in road traffic accidents around the world each year. Another 50 million people are injured. Traffic accidents, not terrorism, are the leading cause of death for Americans under the age of 35. And things are getting worse. People are buying more and more cars. On current trends, by 2020 road traffic accidents will have risen by 60%, outstripping stroke and HIV as the main causes of preventable death.
Politicians are not decrying the car as 'evil'. There is little talk of danger, of 'Al Careda' or 'Carmageddon', and even less of measures to be taken. Politicians have not declared a 'War on Carism'. They have not invaded Munich or Detroit, or sent occupying armies to Nagoya. The WHO report contains a few mealy-mouthed and vague comments from Bush and Blair. But no politicians are curbing our civil liberties to fight Al Careda, despite the fact that you and I are thousands of times more likely to die prematurely due to cars than due to Islamist terrorism.
In fact, the spread of the car is an example of the spinelessness of politicians and the toothlessness of democracy. A machine is invented and introduced without much foresight or political debate. It seems like a good idea at the time. It seems to be about technology, not politics, health or morality. Some states require men with red flags to walk in front of cars when they're first introduced, but by and large everyone is excited about the machine. No elections are fought on the question 'Whether or not we should have cars'. The 'democratic' angle on cars is not how to get rid of them, but how to make them affordable to the common man. Carless places -- Venice, the island of Sark, Alicudi -- are that way for topographic rather than moral reasons. Very few voices against carism are raised. Even now, when the true cost of cars to the planet can to be calculated, radical political solutions don't seem to be proposed, because they don't seem to be possible.
'The WHO-World Bank joint report sets out specific measures aimed at reducing deaths from road traffic accidents,' the BBC reports. 'These include providing affordable public transportation and safe crossings and paths for pedestrians. It also suggests that communities should be planned so that residents do not have to travel far to go to work, school or local shops. In addition, it says more could be done to separate different road users, like lorry drivers or those doing the school run.'
These are pathetically small and unimaginative solutions. In a democracy, attitude matters. We can start the long march towards a car-free world by changing the prevalent attitude to cars. We should create an aura of unacceptability around cars, a car taboo. We need to draw people's attention to the toxicity of cars. We need to counter all the careless car-love, all the slick advertising, and make the idea that cars are toxic thinkable and sayable.
I'll say it right here. Cars are ugly. I hate them. I hate the look of them, the politics of them, the noise they make, their smell. I'd be delighted to see more cars in cities getting scratched, defaced, daubed with slogans, burned out. Cars deserve public vituperation much more than terrorists do. Cars are an idea that has had its time. They're past their sell-by date and they're damaging the world and the things I love.
A car cannot be cool. The world would be better off without cars. I will vote for people who are anti-car (unless they're Nader and my vote just helps an oil president). I want politicians to be proposing car-free cities, car-free days and car-free weeks, and eventually car-free nations and car-free years. I want to see Barcelona ban the carrida the way it has just banned the corrida. I want car bans to expand at the rate that smoking bans are currently expanding. I want to hear rhetoric about cars that matches rhetoric about terrorists. I want to see a big statue of Henry Ford toppled, to massive applause from freedom-loving people all over the world.
I want to hear about the complete separation of cars from cities. I want to see proposals from architecture students to put cars in underground tubes and tunnels. I want car drivers to be troglodytes. I want to see car drivers paying the actual price their cars cost the world, not just the cost of the metal and the gas. I want computers to take over all the functions of driving, not just parking, and I want cars to evolve into public spaces. For instance, when cars are snarled in tailbacks, I want little doors between their noses and tails to open automatically, turning the rows of private cars into a trainlike public space with a corridor. I want to see people getting up from their car seats, stretching, and walking up and down that corridor, looking at other people, buying a cup of green tea from a trolley.
I want to hear some acknowledgement from politicians that it's the things that everyone does, the things that pass for normal, that are the truly toxic and 'evil' things in the world today, not a few marginal guerilla movements or rogue states. If you want to see an 'evil' person, a person likely to wreak havoc and cause death, take a photo of yourself as you walk towards your car.
I dedicate this blog entry to Mary Hansen of Stereolab, a victim of terrorism.
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Date: 2004-04-07 03:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-07 05:36 am (UTC)(Shame about Mary. Didn't Nico die like that?)
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Date: 2004-04-07 04:10 am (UTC)humans! what a stupid useless lot!
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Date: 2004-04-07 10:08 am (UTC)there is no one cause behind Al Qaeda, either. there is the fact that about 50,000 years ago people started circulating counterfactuals as a basic for intellectual development, and that somewhere closer to 10,000 years ago the maintenance and development of those mythic structures became ordered in a guild structure; that an increased focus onon literate transmission of those structures about 2,000 years ago led to increased specialization among specific mythic forms, leading to dilineation between the cultural expressions of those forms along roughly geopolitical boundaries...
I mean, a thesis could be written on the ultimate causes of the politico-religious aspect of Middle Eastern terrorism alone, and that's leaving aside complicating factors like the establishment and maintenance of a Jewish state by wealthy foreign landowners in the middle of a relatively poverty-stricken and isolationist area of the world, patriarchal governing of "lesser" peoples by ultimately fundamentalist religious administrations in the West, and increased demand for oil worldwide (which of course can also be traced in a fairly straight line to Henry "you can have any color car you want as long as it's spattered with blood" Ford). sic semper Toyota.
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Date: 2004-04-07 04:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-07 05:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-07 05:56 am (UTC)If public transportation in our city wasn't so horrible, I would have stuck with that.
I think the 2 hour wait times just finally got to me.
Although, I don't feel too horrible though with my terribly efficient, subcompact CRX
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Date: 2004-04-07 06:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-07 06:42 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-07 07:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-07 07:27 am (UTC)http://www.urban75.com/Punch/clarkson.html
'Step forward that smug, tight-trousered, lardy-arsed oaf, Jeremy Clarkson and take a well deserved slap. When this blubbery bore isn't droning about cars in that wanky voice of his, he's busy making a total fuckwit of himself with statements like, "if others want to save the planet, that's up to them. I'm too busy going to parties."
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Date: 2004-04-07 07:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
From:Caricide
Date: 2004-04-07 07:28 am (UTC)In the meantime, there are several less ideal if more realistic steps we can take: smaller, more efficient cars; better public transportation; more bikes and scooters (like mine!); better city planning; higher gas prices and car taxes; more walking! And outlawing the ubiquitous SUVs, supersized vans, and Hummers, too.
(My father was crippled in a car accident, so I've always hated them, but I admit I enjoy riding in or driving them when I can, so I'm the first to admit I'm a hypocrite.)
To my fellow poster: I think Nico died when she had a heart attack while riding a bike in the Canary Islands, if I remember correctly--but maybe there was a car involved, too.
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Date: 2004-04-07 07:50 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-07 07:46 am (UTC)now i've moved to portland, or and buses go nowehere. it's abysmal! after being let go from my job in the downtown highrise i had to take a job in the suburbs and before you could say "global warming!" i was the wary owner of a vw golf. it's definitely an evil necessity.
but i do dream of the day i can throw off the shackles of car payment/gas consumption/road rage. i would love it if everyone else followed suit.
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Date: 2004-04-07 08:38 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2004-04-07 08:56 am (UTC)hating cars is a good thing.
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Date: 2004-04-07 09:52 am (UTC)That's why I'm scared to ride a bike in San Francisco- the drivers really don't give a shit about pedestrians- it's even hard to cross a street at a controlled crossing. I did enjoy having a car here when I had it, but now I have to rely on the bloody public transport that is the worst I have ever known (and I've lived here over 7 years, also been in Seattle, LA, NY, Chicago, London, Vienna and a few other major cities). Cars are practical in places that have no public transport, and not every town and city in the world can afford to have a developed public transport system. Cars will always be needed, unless everyone moves to the major cities, which will result in overcrowding, lack of housing, etc...and you can experience all these wonderful things in San Francisco!!! I think though that if there is a public transport system available in a major city that gets someone where they need to go(the most important factor seems to be getting to work), then people should use it. I hate people who could take public transport, but choose to use their car instead. But economic factors also have to be considered per individual. The public transport company's should also be responsible and professional, and not dick people around- like SF MUNI for example. I ride SF MUNI every day and I hate them...
car free places
Date: 2004-04-07 10:17 am (UTC)I completely agree with most of what you say... and unfortunately, almost everywhere the situation with cars is only likely to become worse.
There are however some (slight) hints of moving to the right direction (only in few places).
I live in a city that 10 years ago had among the worst traffic jams and pollution imaginable. The vicious circle was there: according to authorities, "traffic jams meant not enough roads, which meant spending a lot of the resources of a country that is not rich (Colombia) into road building, which implied more cars which implied more traffic jams and pollution...". It was the same as in many other places, with some local additions as well.
Around 1999, a new experiment was tried by E. Peñalosa, the former mayor of Bogotá: trying to convince the citizens to break that endless circle. Several things were tried, some more successful, some less. But in my opinion, the main change was in two fronts:
the mentality of people,
the new laws looking into the future.
By this I mean, one of the worst aspects of the car conundrum is that many people have just given up thinking about alternatives. Many people dislike cars, but cannot really think viable alternatives. I had the same attitude. But somehow, the experiments of Bogotá are convincing people that there are alternatives.
So far, we have had 4 complete carfree days since 1999. Complete for car owners (buses and taxis may run those days). But from 6 am to 7 pm, during a working day, a city of 8 million people has completely shut down the use of private cars, forcing people to try either public transportation, taxis or bicycles.
The first time, the Carfree Day was very strongly criticized, and few people believed it would work. However, it worked, to the extent that a referendum where the question on several car related issues passed.
By popular vote, we now have:
I posted a comment (http://jozefpronek.livejournal.com/21522.html) on last february's carfree day.
I don't know yet how they are going to implement that last law, but it is a law, and the improvement in public transportation since 2000 has been dramatic.
Of course, the city still has pollution (less so than before), but I believe that the change of attitude in people's minds (together with a lot of work in many directions is the only way of ever breaking the terrible vicious circle of Al Carreda!
Re: car free places
Date: 2004-04-07 10:44 am (UTC)I wish more cities would try a plan like the one you mentioned. A more reliable transportation system and safer pathways for bike riders would absolutely solve an enormous part of the problem. The transportation system in San Francisco does not care about its riders, because the unions protect the bad workers and their superiors. And many drivers feel like they have a right on the road because they are inside their big, powerful cars...so they expect any pedestrians or bike riders to get out of their way or else! I'm not sure if it will ever change here *sigh*
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Date: 2004-04-07 12:09 pm (UTC)antonin
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-07 12:49 pm (UTC)in cars
Date: 2004-04-07 02:01 pm (UTC)i had lived in walkable cities with excellent public transportation (boston and nyc) for two years before moving to LA, so when i got here i found the car culture to be a bit of an inconvenience. having to be constantly in command of a deadly weapon definitely raises the level of stress you feel going about your day-to-day business. the drivers are either extremely aggressive or just incompetent, and the amount of traffic on the roads at any given time makes it that much worse. also, drunk driving is rampant here.
yesterday on the way to school i was held up by the aftermath of a serious crash on sunset boulevard at about 11am. the emergency vehicles were already gone and they were just beginning to load the two cars onto tow trucks. it was a head on collision between a little black miata and some sort of other small sedan, and it's really odd to see such a direct crash - i figure one of them had to have been driving in the wrong lane. what was so strange that neither car seemed to have swerved at all, and they seemed to have collided at a relatively high speed. the sedan was crumpled about halfway up the hood, and the front end of the miata was entirely crumpled to the windshield. from the fracture pattern on the glass it looked like there had been a passenger whose head had hit the windshield, but i didn't see any blood; either they'd cleaned things off, or it may have just been a result of the impact. in any event, i would be surprised if anyone in either car survived.
there is a book that i recommend to everyone that i will recommend to you, particularly if you are at all interested in southern california "american dream" car culture. it's a taschen photography book called car crashes and other sad stories (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/3822864110/qid=1081370918/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/102-7554949-7967343?v=glance&s=books&n=507846). it's photos of crashes in orange county in the 40's and 50's by a guy called mell kilpatrick. the police would alert him whenever someone reported a crash, and often he'd get there before any emergency vehicles showed up. what is so beautiful and disturbing about the photos is the bystanders and the expressions of the victims who survived the crashes - the feeling of "how could this possibly happen?" some are bloody and gruesome but that isn't what is shocking about them so much as that people in the post-war suburban days seemed to be so full of hope and acceptance of the kind of life that cars made possible, and really had never considered that it could prove deadly.
i have a friend named olli who used to do visuals for this dj night back in DC, and i lent him the book one week and he made a sort of car crash montage movie to be projected on the screen. he didn't even use any of the really gruesome ones, but apparently the partygoers were so disturbed that he had to take it off the screen. he actually runs a bar in berlin now called 8mm (http://www.8mmbar.com) that you should check out, if you haven't already!
this is the other one i was thinking of
Date: 2004-04-07 03:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-07 06:42 pm (UTC)i'm excited about gas-free cars (hybrids for now), tougher laws on drunk drivers (they are talking about making them have a YELLOW license plate so others know), greatly reduced speed limits near pedestrians (here, anyway), more lanes dedicated as carpool lanes, better cabin areas on new cars that hold up in crashes, and more money being spent on public transportation. people want all of this. that's why it's happening. people also want their cars and control over when and where they can go (and how fast they can get there), so i have a hard time imagining a world without cars. but i still think enough things can change to make cars less dangerous.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-07 06:59 pm (UTC)Too much green chartreuse,
W
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-08 02:06 am (UTC)I mean we're all hypocrites, but ... given how strongly you apparently feel about this, is there nothing you wouldn't allow your music to be associated with?
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-08 05:53 am (UTC)You should all try travelling by bus in Glasgow, like I do every day - ankle deep-litter; knife slashes and cigarette burns on the seats; slimy condensation on the walls; and, if you're really lucky, a real live vomiting junkie on the back seat. Sometimes saving the world requires a bit of effort, rather than just registering approval of someone else's views.
The only time I travel in a car is when I travel places with my Dad. He once drove half a mile, in a coupe, to a polling station to vote Green. Maybe i should have said something ;-)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-08 08:23 pm (UTC)My car has about had it. I'd like to buy a new hybrid, but I can purchase a decent used car for less than 1/10th the cost. Until I've made my dollars I won't be getting a hybrid, unless they catch on soon. Another potential benefit of hybrids: Detroit and its economy might stand a chance at being rebuilt if its automakers dropped some testes and went forth with eco-friendly cars which don't look like tennis shoes.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-09 03:54 am (UTC)i am 30 and didn t even get a license. then again, i am spoiled with good public transport.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-10 09:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-10 12:53 pm (UTC)It is possible to run cars on a 50-50 mix of diesel and chip oil which reducus emissions greatly. Chip shop owners pay people to take the used oil off of them as disposal of such oils is very tightly regulated. Unfortunately, as it is not taxable, the government has made this practice illegal, though I believe it is fairly widespread.
Beautifully written journal by the way.
xx
xx
You're not alone...
Date: 2004-04-13 11:40 am (UTC)Frankly, the Oil Age is coming to a halt, probably within our lifetimes. Petroleum geologists are well aware of Dr. M. King Hubbert's Peak Oil theory, which states that we will eventually reach a peak of world oil production -- all production after that point becomes more difficult and more expensive, to a point where there is less energy coming out (as oil) than going into the oil extraction process.
Most scientists think we are at this point today. An increasing number of exploratory oil and gas drillings are coming up empty. Knowing that our appetite for energy has been steadily increasing, not decreasing, since the start of the oil era, we will probably use up what's left mostly by 2020, with a slow trickle down to empty by 2060.
That's about 13 years away.
If we don't make a radical move away from an oil-based economy, well, let's just say that things are going to get very very interesting - in the Chinese curse sense of the word.
Hybrid cars and the vaunted "hydrogen" economy are nice ideas, but are a stopgap at most. At our present rate of energy consumption, we'd have to quadruple electricity production in the US alone to make up for what we use in gas and oil. What this means, in practical term, is that we're going to have to scale back our economies and our lifestyles to something more closely resembling pre-highway times: 2025 will be in some ways, a lot like 1925 but with cell phones and the Internet...
The whole problem, as M. Momus points out, is that we've arranged our whole society in this horribly spread-out fashion. People regularly commute hours to go to work, and back again. It's pure madness. But people shrug and accept it. As was famously said, no-one ever rioted for austerity, so when the price of gas goes to $5 a litre we can expect some trouble...
I can recommend some further readings and upcoming viewing for those who are interested:
1 - Jeremy Leggett's The Carbon War -- former Royal School of Mines professor who saw the science on the wall and helped start the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Fascinating 10-year history of the battle to get its findings accepted (fighting oil lobbyists all the way) and, surprisingly, to get the insurance industry onside.
2. North American viewers, watch on Earth Day, April 22 for The Great Warming, a 3-part special about the effects of climate change on the world's weather, hosted by Alanis Morrissette and Keanu Reeves, broadcast on the Discovery Channel -- a similar program with Leo DiCaprio as host will be broadcast in the US.
3. James Howard Kunstler's great books, The Geography Of Nowhere and The City In Mind, describe how we got into the suburban-commuter mess and how New Urbanist planning might get us out of it, at least partially.
4. J.H. Crawford's book Carfree Cities offers analysis and plans for designing and building completely carfree cities (neighborhoods linked by light rail etc.) - and check out the website, www.carfree.com.
Cheers,
AJ Kandy
westexpressway.typepad.com