Cars have two opposite personalities

Cars have two opposite personalities. One is friendly and attractive the other is destructive and can be lethal. The desire to own a car is linked to pleasure, sexuality, convenience and freedom. Men lust for attractive, prestigious cars they way they lust for women and women desire men with attractive, prestigious cars.  Car manufacturers have long used attractive, lightly clad women to advertise their latest auto designs. Men a 24424u208y re also interested in power, performance and want to know something about the engine, although modern engines are sufficiently complex to discourage even the professional mechanic. Some of the new engine complexity involves emission control systems that require electronic monitoring and adjustment of engine performance under different operating conditions; several devices are added to the engine to handle air flow in, fuel delivery and exhaust out.

Driving a car is the most polluting act an average citizen commits. Emissions from passenger vehicles are increasing in Canada and the US despite attempts to make engines more fuel efficient and despite the addition of antipollution devices. The main reason is that cars are getting bigger and pick-up trucks and sports vehicles are often replacing smaller, lighter passenger cars. The average new vehicle in 2001 consumed more fuel that its counterpart in 1988. In the USA in 1987 cars averaged 25.9 miles to the gallon. Fuel efficiency dropped to 24.6 miles/gallon by 1998 and is dropping further as more larger vehicles replace smaller ones.

Exhaust from all combustion engines combine to produce local adverse effects on the health of car users and all innocent bystanders. Cities have become islands of toxic chemicals from the unrestrained use of vehicles burning fossil fuels. Cars are noisy, ugly, often dangerous and dominate the experience of modern living. We are now used to the carnage on  roads and highways- attempts to reduce death and disability from our motorized containers have not substantially altered the negative impact on society. The adverse health effects of car exhaust are pervasive and difficult to measure.

Television Ads for  sports and recreation vehicles show solitary, impeccable machines  in wilderness locations. One TV ad shows a couple making a mad dash to escape the city core in their expensive, luxury upholstered clone of the land-rover. The ads are selling a fantasy of wilderness and escape. Is the consumer is completely deluded? These vehicles are mostly found in suburban driveways and the traffic jams of polluted cities. They have nowhere to go to escape the  environmental degradation they help to create.  4x4 drives and large tires are rarely useful and are not suited to highway driving, You see these machines, submerged in  floods they helped to create.

Combustion engines contribute to carbon dioxide accumulation in the atmosphere and are responsible for climate changes. A sane, sober revision of vehicle use is long overdue.

What Can I do? Drive Less

Both local and global pollution would be dramatically improved if each car-driving person pledged to use their car 30% less starting immediately. Cities should reduce vehicular traffic by 30 % over the next 3 to 5 years. This is a realistic contribution. Each person can resist the temptation to buy larger, heavier cars, trucks and sports vehicles. If you really need to drive off-roads in wilderness settings,  you need a rugged clunker that's already got scratches, dents and mud on the tires. Carry a shovel,  axe and a come-along in the back. Have a heavy duty winch up front. Stay off highways.