Book Notes: Why We Drive: The Past, Present, and Future of Automobiles in America by Andy Singer

Why We Drive: The Past, Present, and Future of Automobiles in America by Andy Singer

Places Discussed

Many and various

Posted 2013-12-14

Book Notes by John December

"The automobile's need for space literally destroys urban areas! " (p. 55).

The author's main point in this short book is simple and eloquent: we are being bullied into cars. Andy Singer has long been known for his cartoons that satirize automobile-centric culture. In this book, Singer describes some of the thinking behind his cartoons: political and economic policy has been set up so that people who do not have a car are punished mercilessly (often to the point of death) and that those who have and use cars are coddled, subsidized, and treated with a different set of laws than the rest of us. This is not the result of some mysterious conspiracy, but an out-in-the open collaboration of the oil, road-building, automobile, real-estate, and related industries who have steadily merged interests to make profits from car culture. Singer's accomplishment is to vividly and clearly make the case of the title "why we drive" using his cartoons and footnoted facts and sources.

Singer cites many different sources to support his points including Asphalt Nation: How the Automobile Took over America, and How We Can Take It Back by Jane Holtz Kay (1997) which is a more in-depth analysis of this topic. Singer also brings up some very insightful points I've not found expressed in detail elsewhere:

Singer suggests dividing cities into two sections: driving and non-driving (p. 8). Just as the ill health effects of smoking led to laws to protect non-smokers, so too might laws that combat pedestrian injuries, death, and illness due to automobiles might be passed. I think this could be accomplished at the micro-scale--that is, not whole city sections or large neighborhoods, but plazas and sections of streets which are pedestrian-only.
Singer cites Ivan Illich's analysis in Energy and equity (1974), in which given to the number of hours spent on car maintenance and earning the money to pay for it, an American might spend 1,600 hours to go 7,500 miles -- a return of about five miles per hour! In other words, a typical driver could go the same distance easily by bike if he used all the time he or she spent supporting the car to instead riding a bike! (p. 15).
Twenty to forty percent of a car's pollution comes from its manufacture and disposal (p. 53). So-called "green" cars simply shift when and where the pollution happens. I also observe that green cars take up the same kind of space in cities, pushing out other use and requiring subsidies for car storage (See Shoup).
Thirty to fifty percent of American land is given over to accommodate cars through roads, access roads, parking lots, etc. (p. 55).
There are many costs cars incur that represent lost tax revenue and increased costs for healthcare--an enormous subsidy which is often not addressed (p. 67).
Walking or bicycling is a more efficient way to move people--more people can be moving in a given space than by cars (p. 85).
Transportation departments at all levels of government build roads in a sort of perpetual-motion machine to capture funds and expand their own power. Because public transit is ignored, it gains no power, and is thus underfunded (pp. 101-115).

The result of Singer's efforts is a book that I think every high-school student should read and study, and that would make a great gift for your local politician, decision-maker, planner, member of the press, or transportation official.

Why We Drive: The Past, Present, and Future of Automobiles in America by Andy Singer

Places Discussed

Book Notes by John December

Related Links

Related Books