The Absurd Primacy of the Car in American Life
I agree with the author, and am cognizant of the problem and outraged for the same inefficiencies, deleterious health effects, and fatalities he outlines. But I wish he could have spent an equal amount of time exploring how we solve this problem rather than just inciting futile anger over it.<p>One solution is telecommuting; get people of the road by having them work from home. Another is mandating fuel efficiency and reducing the pollution cars produce. It&#x27;s outrageous that children getting leukemia and respiratory illnesses are considered acceptable loses so that people can drive enormous SUVs purely as status symbols instead of for their utility. You want to drive a vehicle that gets less than 20 MPG? Fine, you&#x27;re also going to pay a gasoline consumption tax to support the social programs that take care of the families your pollution is giving cancer.<p>Most importantly to me, and the point the author leaves out, is that cars are highly subsidized. The irony of American car ownership is that we consider public transportation socialist, while spending trillions of tax dollars on public roads. I would love to take the train to work, where I can read a book, write, or program instead of sitting in traffic for an hour... but for some reason we consider sitting in traffic for an hour on a publicly-funded road &quot;freedom.&quot;