By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. It is predictable that every once in a while the anti-car “intelligentsia” must rise up and launch a missive across the bow of The Rest of Us – the grossly misinformed unfortunates (as they see it) who occupy a dwindling space in the world – chastising our lot for being pathetically out of touch and in desperate need of straightening out.
Such was the case last week when the Associated Press deemed it necessary to grace us with an article with the ominous title of “Americans driving less as car culture wanes.”
The piece, by one Joan Lowy, went on to predict the imminent demise of the automobile and everyone who ascribes any value whatsoever to it in an almost gleeful, “Ding-Dong! The Witch is Dead” tone, while marshaling “facts” that suggest our transportation future will consist of us luxuriating in pushcarts stuffed with our worldly belongings in them and that this will be environmentally righteous and good, and that we will somehow all be in a better place because of it.
The statistics were lined up in rote fashion in the piece, of course: The total number of miles driven in the U.S. is down sharply; people don’t derive pleasure from driving anymore while they’re stuck in massive, stop-and-go traffic jams, saying, “For commuters stuck in traffic, getting into a car no longer correlates with fun. It’s also becoming more of a headache to own a car in central cities and downright difficult to park.”
It sounds like the reporter, based in Washington, D.C. – one of the most car unfriendly cities in the country - has an axe to grind, and ginned-up the story after sitting around with like-minded colleagues in some sort of “We hate our miserable lives” bitch-fest. I can almost hear the rationalizing now, “Why don’t you do an article about how car culture is dead? After all, everyone we know hates cars, therefore it must be true!” Or, something along those lines.
Any shred of credibility the article had a chance of having went out the window with the first quote from one Nancy McGuckin, who labels herself as a “travel behavior analyst” (I kid you not) and who said, “The idea that the car means freedom, I think, is over.”
“Travel behavior analyst?” Really? And we’re supposed to attach gravitas to an article that actually has that job title in it?
It gets worse. The AP reporter went on to gleefully say that “Gone are the days of the car culture as immortalized in songs like ‘Hot Rod Lincoln,’ ‘Little Deuce Coupe’ and ‘Pink Cadillac.’” This was backed-up, of course, with Ms. McGuckin chiming in again - as if once wasn’t enough – with this gem, “The car as a fetish of masculinity is probably over for certain age groups,” McGuckin said. “I don’t think young men care as much about the car they drive as they use to.”
From there the article’s slant pirouetted into a mishmash of ominous statistics all designed, hopefully, to make you want to take your car out back and shoot it between the headlights and be done with it.
A prominent rationale that was beaten to death in the article was that the decline in teens clamoring for their driver’s licenses because they’re now focused on their handheld devices, iPads and social networking effluvia was proof positive that The End of the Automobile was upon us and that the permanent decline in car culture as we know it is nigh, with people of a certain age fading away with each new – and better - telecommuting option, while taking their obsolete automobiles with them to their graves.
The only point of levity in this miserable excuse for journalism was a quote from Sean MacAlinden, the chief economist for the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich., who, after probably being badgered to saying something that agreed with the reporter’s slant about young people abandoning cars in droves, instead had the temerity to say the most rational and logical thing in the article when he said, “I don’t think it’s a change in people’s preferences. I think it’s all economics. It might last if the economics stay the same. But if they improve, I think people will come back to driving more. … Give a person a good job 25 miles away and they’ll be at the dealership the next morning.”
Sounds perfectly logical, but as if to bury that moment of levity the reporter followed that up by saying, “The decline in driving has important public policy implications. Among the potential benefits are less pollution, less dependence on foreign oil, reduced greenhouse gas emissions and fewer fatalities and injuries. But less driving also means less federal and state gas tax revenues, further reducing funds already in short supply for both highway and transit improvements. On the other hand, less driving may also mean less traffic congestion, although the impact on congestion may vary regionally.”
And for the piece de resistance, the reporter dredged up a quote from one Phineas Baxandall, senior analyst for the gruesomely predictable – and painfully tedious - U.S. Public Interest Research Group, who waxed on about how a decline in driving would be so wonderful, freeing up money spent on transportation for other uses, “You just don’t want to spend money you don’t have for highways you don’t need,” Baxandall said.
Thank goodness, I’m certainly glad that he cleared that up for us.
The sad thing about this article is that it rattled around the Internet, landing – and most likely resonating - in the touchy-feely enclaves in Washington and northern California, finding purchase with the usual gang of entitled and self-absorbed politicians who, when confronted with the “brilliance” of this piece, think they have a free pass to impart this path of righteousness on the rest of us, saying to themselves, “This is what everybody is thinking and this is what everyone wants!”
Except that it isn’t.
I’ve seen this movie before and it didn’t end well the first time. In fact, it never ends well. The last time The Rest of Us were exposed to this train of irrational thought was at the height of the bankruptcy hearings in Washington, when the pitchforks came out and politicians of every stripe branded the domestic automobile industry and everyone and everything associated with it as being inconsequential and a remnant of an obsolete America that needs to be put to sleep once and for all.
We all (well, most of us anyway) know that’s not true, but when you’re feeding at the public trough for a living like our esteemed (cough, hack) politicians are, and being driven around in King Kong SUVs as your only exposure to “transportation” – it’s hard to generate a rational thought about anything, especially the one industry that directly and indirectly contributes more to their constituents’ well-being than any other homegrown industry in the country.
And of course what masquerades as rational discourse on the automobile and its place in society in our mainstream media outlets these days is often lost in a cacophony of calculated anti-car ramblings, perfectly encapsulated in this latest piece from the AP.
I would assume that according to Ms. Lowy, our takeaway from her relentlessly tedious piece should be the following:
1. We should drastically reduce our reliance on the automobile and everything associated with it immediately.
2. This will, in turn, magically transform our world into a beautiful place filled with bunny rabbits and rainbows, one entirely devoid of pollution and traffic jams - from this day forth known as The Quiet Land – only intermittently interrupted by the faint sound of pushcarts being dragged along on our now quaintly refurbished cobblestone streets by Shiny Happy People muttering to themselves how wonderful and better things are – a warped 21st century Rickshaw Nation somewhat akin to America before the industrial revolution - only now with handheld devices.
(I will hand it to the anti-car “intelligentsia,” however, because they are at least consistent in their blind devotion at portraying the future of America as a long and narrowing road of Reduced Expectations, a soulless, amiable, inoffensive country that occupies a benign place in the pecking order of nations, something along the lines of Sweden, only with better scenery.)
But I have news for the self-righteous anti-car zealots who have this vision for America: It’s notgonnahappen. Those more grounded in reality understand that the future of transportation in America will involve personal mobility, not a nation of compliant citizenry happy to have their individual freedoms marginalized, curtailed or removed altogether.
To the chagrin of the doomsayers, the automobile – and the freedom it represents – is still alive and well.
As I’ve said before in previous columns, we are not as a country – thankfully - going to walk away from the automobile and settle into a blissful mass stupor powered by a fleet of bicycles and balsa-wood clown cars.
I believe that freedom of mobility will remain one of the most undeniable tenets of the American ideal, and that means that people will associate freedom, mobility and personal expression through their automobile choices, much to the chagrin of people who clearly don’t believe we should even have that choice any longer.
If you like driving a Prius and if you like the “statement” it makes about your personal beliefs - when a bumper sticker just won’t do – that’s perfectly fine. But at the same time, if you have a big family and you need a Chevy Suburban in the family fleet that should be perfectly acceptable too.
There are no “wrong” answers here, because the freedom of choice and the freedom of expression happen to be among the most basic reasons why we live in this country to begin with.
Yes, the higher price of gasoline has finally made people make smarter choices in their vehicle purchases, admittedly something that has been long overdue.
But will high gas prices mean a wholesale abandonment of what the car represents in this country overnight?
Not a chance.
The people in this country will continue to desire all kinds of vehicles - from sports cars and urban gas-sippers, to pickups and other heavier-use vehicles - which the American automobile industry will happily provide.
We’re a vast nation of breathtaking contrasts, and no one transportation solution could ever encompass the diversity of thought and the wildly different perspectives – let alone the needs and wants - floating around “out there,” thankfully.
Whether they’re Mr. Green Jeans acolytes or high-performance, thrill-seeking junkies, people will still buy an automobile that says something about who they are, no matter how much the doomsayers insist that this can’t continue. And that must be so disconcerting for those who so want all of “this” – this automotive love affair - to be over.
Well, guess what? It’s far from over.
Not only that, for the rest of us it’s gratifying to know that we’re not only on the verge of a new beginning, but we’re on the precipice of an exciting new chapter of personal mobility – and the freedom that comes with it.
And that’s the High-Octane Truth for this week.