University Unitarian Universalist Society
Sunday Morning Presentation
August 8, 1999
Copyright © 1999 by Steve Helle. All rights reserved.
Living Within Limits – Part 3
By Steve Helle
Three weeks ago I purchased a brand new Ford pickup truck. Do I really love that truck? You bet! I spent about a year and half researching, analyzing and determining exactly what kind of vehicle I wanted to get next. My previous car gave out a little quicker than I expected but I knew exactly what I wanted. After a week of dickering with car dealers, I found the right truck at the right price and got it. As many of you have probably know, one of the real joys of life is when you get a new car.
The automobile is an engrained part of the American life. Virtually every household has at least one car. Most households have two or more cars. It is not uncommon for a household to have three, four or five cars. Some times we even have specialty vehicles such as a truck or SUV just because we own a boat or camping trailer that needs towing with a larger vehicle. The average American goes almost no where without utilizing a car. The average family makes10 trips per day, which means that approximately 5 times a day people leave the house utilizing the car and 5 times a day they return. We use the automobile to go to work, to shop, for recreation, for enjoyment, to go to church, to go out to eat, for virtually everything we do. It is hard to imagine how we would function without the automobile.
A couple of weeks ago I was reading a book title "Ain’t Nobody’s Business if You Do" by Peter McWilliams. I was actually reading this in preparation for a future talk which I would like to give on looking at some alternatives to the "War on Drugs". However, I came upon this one passage that I though was very appropriate for this talk. McWilliams talks about addiction and states "The idea here is that most addictions are troublesome when the addictive substance is taken away. As a Culture, we are addicted to (among many other things) electricity, packaged foods and automobiles. As long as these things are readily available we do not notice our addiction to them. However if one (or all three) were taken away we would immediately exhibit the symptoms of classic addictive withdrawal." As we go through the rest of this talk, consider whether or not we might really be addicted to automobiles.
The automobile is a relatively new part of history. It was apparently invented in 1885, 114 years ago by Karl Benz in Germany although many other were also working independently on the invention at the same time. For the next two decades the "horseless carriage" was utilized mostly of an object of curiosity by inventors, mechanics and as a toy for the elite. However, by 1908 Henry Ford had developed his infamous assembly line that made Model T fords available to the masses. This is what launched the automobile in the mainstream of American life.
Making automobile available to the common American gave an individual mobility freedom that was never there before. All the sudden people could travel at 10, 20, 30 or 40 miles an hour virtually anywhere that the roads led. We were not restricted to railroad trucks for rapid transportation. We could go where we wanted, when we wanted and not have to rely on train schedules. We could start the car with the turn of a key or, initially, a crank and not have to saddle up the horses and hitch up the wagons.
This allowed other freedoms in our lives. We no longer had to work close to home. We could go longer distances to shop or to school. Our recreation options were expanded. America and much of the rest of the world truly became a mobile society.
The automobile also had a tremendous impact on our economy. The manufacturing of automobiles and related products became our largest industry. Entire sections of our population migrated to car producing areas such as Detroit and Toledo. Cars needed fuel and the oil industry became a major economic factor in America and other parts of the world. This at first created great American institutions such as the Rockefeller’s Standard Oil and other major oil companies. Later it had impacts abroad especially in the Arab countries and parts of South America where oil is prevalent.
The road and bridge infrastructure industry became a significant part of our economy. The entire interstate system that was started in the 50’s under President Eisenhower has been a major contributor to our construction industry ever since. Although the initial construction is essentially complete we are still spending $200 million a day on maintenance and expansions of these highways. Traffic engineering and traffic control are large industries in themselves. $48 billion a year is spent nationally for traffic management and parking enforcement, accident response, and administration of state Departments of Transportation.
Our commercial industry has changed drastically because of the mobility provided by the cars. If we did not have the cars we would not have concepts like fast food. Drive thru windows would not exist without the car. Large full service stores such as Walmart’s, Kmart’s and supermarket chains could not exist without the cars. Not enough people could travel far enough to provide the business base for such a large store without the car. In large parts these supermarkets, chain discount stores, large department stores and malls have transplanted the Mom & Pop small business that used to be located in individual neighborhoods. None of this could occur without the car.
The automobile has also had a major impact on our land use patterns. Because of the car we can live farther away from work, school, shopping etc. This makes it feasible to have whole neighborhoods that contain only single family residences. In addition, each individual residence can have large amounts of green areas i.e. yards around them, because it is not necessary to provide the density to keep everything within walking or a short carriage distance. Clustered development around business districts or train stations became unnecessary.
However, as things spread out, "urban sprawl" set in. You need roads to connect those segregated elements of urban sprawl. The residences need to be connected by roads to the schools, work, shopping, and recreation areas. This requires more and more roads. These roads in turn foster additional development farther out causing a never ending cycle of more development creating more traffic needing more roads.
The automobile has also had a tremendous effect on our environment. There is the direct effect from pollution from the automobile exhaust and oils that runoff into our waters. Here in Florida runoff pollutants have significantly impacted development due to our requirement to have retention ponds with all roadways, parking lots, commercial developments, subdivisions etc. Much of our land is taken up in retention ponds, further spreading the development out. Retention ponds typically take up 15% to 20% of all land in developed areas.
Also, sound has had a major impact. We see screening walls and berms separating many major thoroughfares and residential areas. People tend to move away from commercial areas because of the noise that traffic generates. Honking itself is a very obvious distraction in busy commercial areas.
Automobiles use much energy. In my previous talks, it was shown that fossil fuels are limited. The economic impacts due to fossil fuels such as the 1970’s oil embargo, is a direct spin off of the automobile revolution. The fuel transport industry and occasional spills such as the Exxon Valdez are environmental problems that were ultimately a result of the development of the automobile.
There are also a number of indirect environmental impacts caused by the automobile that are associated with urban sprawl. The sprawl has invaded significant portions of habitat for other wildlife species. It has taken a large amount of farmland that could be used for food production. The roadways themselves and sprawl pattern often disrupt migratory patterns. Just think of the number of dead animals that we see on roadways; they probably outnumber the amount the number killed by hunting by far.
The automobile has had a pronounced effect on our health care system. The safety of the automobile has always been an important factor. Since the 1950’s, about 50,000 people a year are killed in automobile accidents. In addition, there are nearly two million of people with disabilitating injuries caused by automobiles each year. With the exception of smoking, automobile crashes are consistently our highest cause of death. Many more people were killed in the automobile than in the Vietnam War during those years. Cars are getting much safer but the number of deaths is going down only slightly. Since many more miles that are being driven now, we are just barely making headway in the death toll.
It always amazes me that we have major news stories, great social anguish, and take social action when we have a shooting such as Columbine High School (and now Atlanta) or a new disease such as AID’s in the 1980’s. However, we commonly drive a car without even thinking about it and the car is by far a greater danger to our health than any of these other issues. Many people are afraid to fly because of headlines that appear with 200 people die in a plane crash. These occur two or three times a year. However, on a daily basis people are killed in cars. 50,000 are killed in cars a year. Perhaps 1,000 in major airline crashes around the world and perhaps another couple thousand in small airline crashes a year.
The safety issue also has significant economic impacts. It increases our health costs and thus our insurance costs. Auto accidents cost nearly $1,500 per man, woman and child in the U.S. each year. The aftereffect in terms of pain, suffering and reduced quality of life adds about another $1,000. No wonder Auto insurance is so expensive! The litigation that goes along with the health and accident issues associated with cars is an industry in itself. Many ambulance chasing attorneys make a good living off the litigation from car accidents.
One of the subtler, but in my view most important impacts of the automobile is its effect on the community. In my opinion the automobile has been a major contributor to the destruction of the community in American society. Think of the operation of the automobile in itself. You isolate yourself by two to three tons of metal as you drive down the street. You can not communicate or often even see the other drivers. There is no sense of community or communications among the drivers and/or pedestrians. Is it really that surprising that road rage and impoliteness occurs? Also when we get out of the automobiles after such a ride, are we likely to be friendly and compassionate?
Likewise the land use patterns that the automobiles has allowed and even encouraged isolation. We live in neighborhoods that have houses which are separated by yards, fences and walls. We tend to stay in our houses, in our yards or get in our automobiles and go somewhere else. We do not interface with our neighbors anywhere as much as we used to before the automobile controlled our lives.
We drive 2 to 5 miles to go to the store. Many people drive 10 or more miles to go to work. Generally, the people that we see at the store or work are not the people that we live near. They also drive 10 mile or more from a different direction. Therefore, they live maybe 20 or 30 miles away from us. Just look at this church where we have a community of people that see each other every Sunday morning. But how many of us actually live near each other and are able to socialize on a regular basis during the week. Without the automobile we would be forced to live near the church or not be part of it. We would see the same people much more often and foster a better sense of overall community.
The automobile also contributes to a lot of stress. There is the obvious stress with traffic jams and decisions that have to be made while your driving. Often mother’s become taxi drivers for their kids because their dance lessons are three miles from school which is two miles from the house. The kids have soccer practice which are another three mile in a different direction. Mom’s schedule becomes very stressful. She has very little time to herself because she is driving all the time.
You also have the stress from the cost and maintenance of the car. Most of us feel the need to have two or three cars. This means that we generally have two or three car payments. I wonder in how many instances this alone forces a second job in a household and all of the complications that come with two working parents such as day care, fixing meals, housecleaning, etc.
Another area of stress that is particularly sensitive to me is automobile maintenance. Automobiles require service routine service and repairs resulting from breakdowns and accidents. Every time your car needs maintenance, it disrupts your schedule and hits you in the pocketbook. Often I end up renting a car for a day or two. This alleviates the need to disrupt other people to drop and pick me up, lend me their cars or give me rides when my car requires service. Service is a major source of frustration for me and I believe probably many other people.
Now to answer the questions that I posed at the beginning of the talk. Are we addicted to the automobile? I know I am and I believe that at least 200 million other Americans are also. With our American lifestyle, the automobile has become an absolute necessity. Unless we change this lifestyle, it will remain the preferred method of transportation.
As an addiction, is it harmful to us? I can’t say the automobile is particularly harmful to me as an individual. However, in the aggregate our national addiction is very detrimental to our environment, our sense of community, our economy and our mental health. Accordingly, we must address our dependence on the automobile seriously as we are addressing other problems associated with dependency on tobacco, alcohol and illegal drugs.
We have come to rely on the automobile too much and we have tailored too much of our lives around it. This has caused us to utilize the automobile excessively and lead lifestyles that are abusive to community, the environment and our personal mental health.
In my view, I think we ought to be looking for ways to minimize the use of the automobile. There are the obvious ways of car pooling, getting rid of unnecessary trips, selling the second car, etc. However, I also believe that it is important to look at ways to adjust society to reduce the need to be dependent upon the automobile. One pet theme of mine is modifying land use, by returning neighborhood shopping and employment to residential areas; get rid of segregated land use patterns; and mandate higher density so public transportation, bicycle and walking become more viable transportation options.
I am committed to working towards a world that minimizes the use of cars. By doing so, it will have a significant overall benefit to our world as a whole. However, I still love my truck. Maybe I am an addict, in denial.