No Accident
It’s always nice when your views on an issue are backed up in the national media by a respected thinker. As if right on cue, Gregg Easterbrook brought in the heavy artillery in the argument over the safety of cars, and the broader health implications of our car dependence. In Sunday’s L.A. Times, Easterbrook echoes many of the same themes as my post from last week concerning our unwillingness to address the health dangers of the expansive role of the car in our lives. Easterbrook is concerned primarily with the eye-popping number of deaths from automobile accidents and the troubling surge in horsepower and cell phone use by drivers. Easterbrook writes:
…245,000 Americans have died because of one specific threat since 9/11, and no one seems to care. While the tragedy of 3,000 lives lost on 9/11 has justified two wars, in which thousands of U.S. soldiers made the ultimate sacrifice, the tragedy of 245,000 lives lost in traffic accidents on the nation's roads during the same period has justified . . . pretty much no response at all. Terrorism is on the front page day in and day out, but the media rarely even mention road deaths. A few days ago, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced that 42,642 Americans died in traffic in 2006. Did you hear this reported anywhere?
Easterbrook reports that car accidents are the fastest growing cause of death in the world, accounting for 1.2 million deaths worldwide in 2006, and marvels at the lack of outrage, which he attributes to the perception that these deaths are “accidental” and, therefore, unpreventable. In my opinion, our reluctance to face this threat is far more deliberate and conscious. We are quite capable of thinking rationally about the impact of the car; we simply choose to look the other way. Easterbrook treads way too lightly on our national car obsession, and even concedes the clichéd connection between the car and our personal freedom. As a result of this acquiescence, Easterbrook’s powerful indictment of the car is followed by two relatively minor proposals: limitations on horsepower and enactment and tough enforcement of laws banning cell phone use in cars. While cell phone bans will likely be common place shortly, restricting horsepower will be about as quick and easy as increasing fuel efficiency standards. Our relationship with the car can’t be tinkered with, any more than you would tinker with a drug addiction. People won’t settle for utilitarian vehicles; they want their cars to prove their worth to friends and strangers alike. The repercussions of our car use have reached pandemic-like proportions not because of the physical evolution of our cars, but because our deepening dependence on the car has made us more aggressively anti-social. If we want safer roads, we need to change more than the car; we need to address the role of the car in our culture.
Streetsblog is one media outlet that has not turned away from the carnage on the roads. Each week, the site posts an inventory of the recent traffic accidents in the New York area, sometimes accompanied by an appropriately graphic picture or two. Streetsblog contributors write extensively and eloquently on transportation and livability issues in New York, but the site may not make a more powerful statement about the destructive impact of cars than this unadorned list.
Photo Credit: Michigan Car Crash.com
Comments
How does the estimable Mr Easterbrook (the author of the best football blog, ESPN'S TMQ) propose to limit horsepower-through a horsepower limit or a higher horsepower tax?
Posted by: Tate | August 9, 2007 10:31 AM
Good point. One intermediate step would be to have a 55mph speed limit. Better for the environment, and less chances of deadly accidents.
One of the reason I do not ride a bike in the city, is because of the car traffic, and the lack of safe bike lanes.
marguerite
http://lamarguerite.wordpress.com
"The Daily Sins of a Green Girl Wannabe"
Posted by: marguerite manteau-rao | August 9, 2007 2:04 PM
Don't limit the auto. Elminiate the auto. We used to ride bikes and trains. Start with free public transit.
Posted by: socialscientist | August 14, 2007 1:33 PM