Car Culture Is Driving Me Crazy!      

Miles Poindexter

	Tell me if you think this sounds kind of weird. I sold my car six months 
ago, yet every week it still gets junk mail at my house; ads for new clutches, 
brake jobs, and the out right pornographic "Quickie Lubes." I went to the Post 
Office and told the lady at the window that my car had moved away and left no 
forwarding address, and could you please stop sending its mail to my box. She 
looked at me for some time, then cautiously slid a Change-of-Address form my 
way mumbling something like, she didn't think there was anything they could 
do for me.

	Half the news I hear on the radio is for my long departed car too. 
There's traffic reports every ten minutes, car thefts, car shows, car recalls,
car accidents, car bombs, and drive by shootings. During the Gulf war, when
there were news reports every night, I couldn't help thinking that these guys
were fighting for my car, risking their lives for a natural resource very 
precious to it. And it was hard to believe. I mean, I liked my car OK at the
time, but I wasn't about to die for it. In between the news segments, there's
 car commercials.

	I've started to wonder how much money car companies spend on 
Advertising. Sometimes it seems as if one in three commercials are for autos. 
And the really annoying thing is that they all look the same. The Lexus is a 
Toyota only its bigger and gets less mileage. An Accura is a Honda is a Kia. A 
Porsche is a souped up Volkswagon. And a Pontiac is an Oldsmobile is a Buick is 
a Chevrolet. How many different versions of four wheels, two doors and a radio 
do we need?

	And How many roads do we need to drive them on? Shouldn't we stop 
making roads? I mean, look at them, they're not pretty. They don't do much for 
scenic value. And wherever more appear, the gas stations, and fast food chains 
eventually follow, like evil clones replicating faster than bunnies on Spanish 
Fly.

	More than once I've forgotten my place in this great scheme of things 
and casually walked up to a Drive-thru window to order some food. Each time I 
was harshly upbraided for my insolence. How dare I come to this window? It 
was very clearly for CARS only. Humans could only enter around the side.

	"Its the same food . . . isn't it?" I would ask timidly.

	"Yes of course." The service person would answer, glancing around, not 
wanting to be seen talking to me through a "cars only" window.

	"OK, I'll go get in line to wait behind six people for the same food." I 
would answer glumly and shuffle away, feeling uncomfortably like a second 
class citizen, segregated, a victim of "Acartheid," if you will.

	I made the mistake of bringing up the idea of a car-free culture at a 
party once, guess I was drunk, and heard the exasperated gasps of my peers.

	"How would we get hot pizzas delivered to our door??"

	"Where would we get laid on our first dates?!?"

	Wilting in the heat of their wrath, I meekly admitted that I had seen the 
horror of my vision. Someone announced they were leaving and asked if 
anybody needed a ride.

	"I could use one!" I spoke up, trying to regain some acceptance from the 
crowd. The room went silent. Even the music stopped. Someone said icily,

	"Didn't I see you arrive on your bike?"

	"I'll leave it here," I stammered, "I don't need it anymore, Jim can throw 
it out with the trash on Monday."

	"What about your helmet?" I looked down in horror. The helmet was in 
my left hand, completely forgotten. I let it drop to the floor with a dull thud.

	"Don't need that anymore . . . I'll be safe . . . in a car." Another silent 
pause ensued. Had my faith in cars been convincing enough? No, they had 
seen through my attempt to be one of them.

	"I think you'd better take your bike home," and then contemptuously, 
"Who knows, maybe one of these nice young ladies will let you ride her home 
on you handlebars!" The laughter was thunderous. I rode home dejected, 
drunk, and alone. 

	So my bicycle gets me around the city now. I feel somewhat like an 
urban mutant; something that was created by accident through unknown 
forces (maybe the ozone hole) which society does not yet know how to deal 
with. I can't on the sidewalks with the poor, defenseless pedestrians and I 
can't ride in the road because I'm not big enough. So I ride in the fringes, the 
"Transit Twilight Zone," relegated to the gutters; Dodging flung open car doors, 
impatient autos stalking me from behind, people stealthily emerging from 
between parked cars, and large buses veering into their stops, conveniently 
forgetting there is a bicyclist between their bus and the curb. And I wonder 
how all those brilliant urban planning engineers, after all those years of 
college and graduate school, after all those grueling hours of study, could be 
such smart crackers and yet it seems they've never heard of a bicycle.

X	 

< Bicyclism