Automobile accidents can be horrible and tragic and we should take the most cost-effective steps we can to reduce or eliminate them. But anti-auto people aren’t interested in cost-effectiveness: they just want to do whatever feels good no matter how much it hurts society.
“Out on the highways there was such a sense of freedom — I thought I would explode from sheer happiness,” wrote the photographer. Yet others look at this picture and all they see is costs and externalities. Photo by Gayle Nicholson.
Case in point: a recent article in Bloomberg’s CityLab argues that automobile advertising promotes dangerous behavior and should be strictly regulated. Apparently, one brand of cars saying that their vehicles are “tough” and another brand saying that their vehicles will “thrill you” encourage people to drive too fast or too recklessly.
Neither Bloomberg nor anyone else has shown a connection between car ads and highway accidents. However, this doesn’t stop people from wanting to regulate ads. Britain has banned an ad for Ford that quoted Dylan Thomas’ poem, “Do not go gentle into that good night” because lines like “Rage against the dying of the light” supposedly promoted road rage.
Regulating auto advertising to eliminate anything that might promote dangerous driving is only the first step. Last year, a group called MobilityLab claimed that automobiles cause external costs of “more than $250 billion a year” and that all auto ads should “disclose downsides and externalities.”
Among them the most important is generico levitra on line http://www.devensec.com/rules-regs/decregs304.html the effect on relationship. Schizophrenia caused by loss: A person crushed by the unbearable loss of his viagra pills for sale possessions or of a loved one becomes pale, depressed, and swoons frequently. “Oh, oh” he groans. You can viagra canada pharmacy confidently use them to strengthen your PC Muslces and Parasympathetic nerves. Spam is categorized by these http://www.devensec.com/news/MRPC_Final%20_Report_7-12-16.pdf generic viagra filters using a mathematical function called probability. MobilityLab is funded by the state of Virginia and city of Arlington to promote alternatives to driving in northern Virginia. From their citations, the $250 billion in external costs is mostly greenhouse gas emissions based on an assumed value of carbon emissions that is questionably high. Even $250 billion is less than half a penny per passenger-mile, and I suspect the benefits people get from auto travel are far greater than that.
The anti-auto people, however, clearly want to classify automobiles in the same category as smoking: something that is irredeemably evil that produces no positive benefits for individuals or society. Typically, they exaggerate the costs and completely ignore the benefits, including increased worker productivity (meaning higher pay), access to better housing, low-cost consumer goods, and so forth.
I don’t want to get into a debate over whether advertising is protected by the first amendment. My point is that the anti-auto people ultimately want to cancel automobiles the way they have cancelled the Confederate battle flag, Robert E. Lee, Huckleberry Finn, and so forth.
Slavery was bad, but cars are the opposite of slavery: they free people to reach more destinations and engage in more economic behavior than the alternatives. Transit groups claim that is a myth, but — as the recent pandemic reminded us — automobiles offer personal freedom that transit, intercity passenger trains, and similar politically correct forms of transport can’t match.
Cars played an essential role in the Civil Rights Movement. Without cars, the women’s rights movement probably would not have happened either. The anti-auto groups will not be satisfied with making roads and streets safer and automobiles cleaner. They want to take away our freedom and mobility as well.
Comment deleted. Metrosucks’ comments are often appreciated but not racism and misogyny.
Like men never slept around…….prior to women’s movement men wih mistresses were common concepts. The loyal and cohesive “Nuclear family” is a fairly recent invention. What cars did was liberate people from geographic boundaries…and urban planners didn’t like that.
The chief demographic transit was originally meant for, the Poor, the Handicapped, the elderly and children. Paratransit services have largely outmoded collectivist transit approaches of taking care of the elderly and handicapped by offering essentially door to door service. Vans can carry children to their afterschool destinations and back. And programs aimed at helping poor people buy a car are statistically shown to better alleviate poverty, because once you have an automobile you’re no longer locally geographically bound to a career and are free to pursue work or even a new residence elsewhere….which is what cities fear most; people fleeing.
Beyond that, as antiplanner noted, NO One complained about suburbanization when the rich were doing it or white collar workers. When average income people moved to suburbia, the utopia was spoiled!
The automotive revolution and the building of the interstate allowed people to leave the geographic constraints of cities for better places. If city leaders cant deliver better schools, lower crime, calmer environments.
Now in fairness we’re experiencing the opposite circumstance…..when Suburbanites whine they hate cities, because they’re noisy and polluted.
Bear in mind; Cities aren’t loud and heavily polluted, CARS are loud and pollute.
“HONK HONK HONK HONK, HEY ASSHOLE MOVE IT, Police/ambulance sirens”
ring any bells.
Without cars and speed limits, cities are fairly quiet and clean. “Car Horns should be just as loud on the inside of the car than the outside”. YES. Such a simple change that would remove so much needless honking. Suburbs are unique in sense they enforce noise ordinances, but when cities do it it’s “Urban life” hustle and bustle. Cars create lots of air and noise pollution, but experience little of it, because, cabin air filters eliminate the particulates they have to breathe and sound dampening technology to curb high speed engine/transmission noise makes car interiors quiet enough to listen to music, or conversation. If you commute to the city, Be a good tenant.
They should be careful what they wish for. If cars can’t advertise being fun to drive, they may resort to ads like “buy yourself a car. it’s the only way to know the seat your using wasn’t crapped on this morning”
”
Such a simple change that would remove so much needless honking.
”
Takes a lot of hubris to make that sort of claim. Just cuz someone doesn’t like it, doesn’t mean it’s needless.
More so it perpetuates the bullshit claim that city’s are noisy cuz of cars. 99% of Americans don’t have problems with car noise, even those living in the heart of cities.
“Like men never slept around…….prior to women’s movement men wih mistresses were common concepts”.
Yeahhhhhhh…..except it wasn’t a openly celebrated thing with women walking around half-naked (by that, I do mean 90% naked) and openly encouraged to party and whore around until it’s time to “settle down” with Mr. Beta Provider and ruin his miserable life.
We’ve gotten to the point where fifteen year olds are walking around wearing nothing more than a glorified bra. The prime minister of Pakistan, a wise man, was asked to comment on the rape epidemic, and he said that men aren’t robots…women are walking around barely decent and except this to have no consequences.
The rail transit and densifying mania is directly tied into greater elite goals for society. It’s not some separate thing out by itself in some corner. To pretend otherwise is to be terminally naive.
“ 99% of Americans don’t have problems with car noise, even those living in the heart of cities.”
Fake statistic alert!
This is a common strategy used by certain advocates who want to attack something. I once heard some environmentalist group claim the real cost of a gallon of gasoline is $56. Also, they tend to make up exaggerated claims about negative impacts. For example the rage about plastic straws lacks any hard evidence to back it up.
“Comment deleted. Metrosucks’ comments are often appreciated but not racism and misogyny.”
But that’s all his comments are! It’s like saying “Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?”
It rings lots of bells. Cities were far noisier before the adoption of the internal combustion engine for transportation and local freight:
From Horse Power to Horsepower