by Malatesta
Mercury Rising #3, January 1992
Response to the following letter from Mercury Rising #3 (December1991):
Dear Mercury Rising:
Mr. or Ms. Malatesta in his/her "Stay on 2 Wheels" article(November, 1991) doesn't seem to grasp the importance of the automobileto the state of well-being of the populace.
Late each day I leave the room filled with petty gossip past the dustbinsand gravy-flecked ties. Before I know it, it is time to get into my car.On silver wings I float to my parking spot and then I am there. In my car,I am flooded with unexpected silence in which I can reminisce. Or, better,I can increase the volume of the stereo until I drive out all thought,agony or discrimination. We must all have a life with which we can live.Our cars help us with that. God bless my car. If anyone should ventureto take my car from me, I would shoot him or (perhaps more appropriately)run him down.
My car is the only place where I am sure I will be alone and undisturbed.It is not just a vehicle. It is a personal resort.
Sometimes I feel I pay for this resort. No, my life with my car is notall easy. Traffic jams are one example, traffic jams when I am late foran appointment and my veins are flooded with pounding force. Or hot summerdays on which the bucket seats cause my buttocks to sweat. Or at the gasstation where my taxes have been raised once again by people who believeeven my right to drive should be taxed.
Sometimes this irks me so much that I feel moved to immediately callmy congresswoman, right there in my car. She usually pretends she isn'tthere.
Sincerely, Josephine Flinch Buick
by Malatesta
Your letter testifies sadly to your boring and anal obsession with yourautomobile. This pervasive malady affects everyone to some degree or other,even me! Although I do not own or drive a car, I am prone to disablingfits of sexual psychosis involving 1960’s model Lincolns and Cadillacs,and tabloid celebrities in various states of collision and prowess, adnauseam... I find we must ask ourselves, is America's love affair withthe car (auto-eroticism) a healthy fetish, or an addiction/disease indicativeof the neurotic and apocryphal stages of a society on the verge of collapse?
Methinks, Josephine, that we are being misled, seduced by the comfortand convenience of a product and industry that will ultimately leave uslonely in a toxic wasteland of rust and despair!
You complain of high gas taxes as you plow the pavement perpetual andblissfully pollute our world... Your sweaty buttocks indeed! A major concernof the growing anti-car movement is getting the car off welfare , referringto the 300 billion dollars needed annually to main tain the infrastructureneeded to keep the auto mobile system running. This huge sum ( in the formof tax breaks, subsidies, and highway expenditures) amounts to over $2,000.00per vehicle, per year. Shame, shame!
To assert that the automobile is of high importance to the well-beingof the populace is to waltz ignorantly over such facts as these: - Approximately47,000 people are killed each year on U.S. roads.
- 30,000 additional deaths per year are caused by motor vehicle emissions.-
-the U.S. consumes 40% of the world’s gasoline.
- 6 of the 7 chief air pollutants come from automobiles.
- Pavement covers 40% of some urban areas.
- An average of 1.5 million acres of farmland is lost to suburban developmenteach year.
- U.S. oil reserves will be depleted by 2020, world reserves by 2040.And furthermore: -The American Lung Association figures that the medicalcosts alone from gasoline fumes amounts to 40-45 cents per gallon.
-In 1982, the Federal Department of Transportation estimated that thecost of noise and air pollution, as well as congestion, in U.S. dollars,at about 20 cents per mile.
-Only 15 cents per gallon spent on gasoline stays in the local economy.
A noxious and heady matter, this auto-absurdia certainly appears tobe a latent and malignant virus affecting our culture irreversibly! I imploreyou, Josephine dear, give up that Tin Lizzie, get a bicycle and get busy!Or to quote Dave Brower, All those who believe in individual mass transportation,raise your right foot.
*facts courtesy of Alliance for a paving moratorium, facts from 1979study by the Institute for Local Self Reliance
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