In times of crisis we tend to focus on the most immediate -- and superficial -- problems. This is clearly this case with our intervention in the failing auto industry, which should be viewed as an oppurtunity to shift our focus from cars altogether.
Update: In case it's not clear, this diary pertains directly to universal health care. Money we don't spend treating car accident victims is billions we spend treating everything else.
Update 2:Already the obvious objection in the comments: this country is bigger than you think. The obvious response is that a good percentage of our population lives in a relatively small percentage of the country. Even if autos are only replaced in urban centers and the surrounding suburban areas we would be saving billions of dollars and thousands of lives. I clearly state that I don't imagine cars would cease to be important to those living in rural or semi-rural areas.
Update 3: Just to "temper" the diary a bit, I want to make it clear that I'm just trying to get a conversation going about how we could exist, in a hypothetical future, with vastly fewer cars. Obviously this would happen over a long period, and obviously cars simply can't be replaced in all circumstances.
It's also so important to keep in mind that while many people love their car, nobody truly pays for it -- the social burden of each car is simply never accounted for.
Update the Fourth: One last update. It bares mentioning that cars are largely a consumer-driven policy. I'm not sure that anything could convince the majority of American to give up their car, even in urban areas. This is why I believe that not all policy should be driven by consumers.
Let's face it: Most people who read this site are Socialists at heart. We believe that government spending on social services should outweigh private consumption, or at least that government spending should cover all the bases: health care, food, shelter, etc. But what about transportation?
We're so obsessed with the economic impact of closing American auto factories that we won't even address the possibility that cars are ill-suited to the present day. Period. I believe the only sane option is to begin to phase-out cars as our primary means of transportation, and to do so requires repurposing auto workers, but more importantly, providing them a social welfare net while this transition happens (which will be cheaper than keeping the auto industry on life support).
So why it so outside the box -- to the point that the subject is not discussed, even here -- that we largely phase out cars as a mode of transportation in this country? Before I address the objections to such a plan, let me state, clearly, why cars (at least in their widespread use) are one of the worst ideas in human history.
Above all, global warming has left us no option. Cars are a luxury, which means they should be first to go in our effort to save the planet.
First, there's the cost of driving. Obviously, each human begin does not need four doors, four wheels and motor to get around. Look at bus or train -- far fewer resources used per person. Hybrid cars will never bridge this gap. Ever. Road maintenance is not cheap, nor is maintaining these cars itself. People never really get this point, because they never view social savings as personal savings. That is, people resent paying taxes so that everyone has transportation, even though such a system is vastly cheaper for everyone than vehicle ownership.
Now the kicker: Each year there are roughly 6,500,000 car accidents. Of those accidents, roughly 40,000 people are killed. One decade of accident statistics like that = number of American deaths in WW2. The cost of these accidents is several hundred billion a year. That's several hundred billion spent solely on accidents.
The most common objection to replacing cars with public transportation is that the current system does not meet the needs of most people. Of course, that's the point -- the current system is based around private vehicle ownership. But if you consider how cheap buses and trains are relative to maintaining a fleet of private vehicles, you begin to realize that we could vastly increase service -- even to suburban areas -- using only a small fraction of what we use to support our private vehicle fleet. Public transportation could be made significantly nicer as well.
But what about when I need to pick up a groceries? 24 hr. delivery service. Just consider how many people need groceries alone in a given suburb on a given day -- people could easily shop, set their groceries aside, and have them delivered along with the groceries of twenty other families in the span of an hour.
What if I want to drive into the wilderness? Obviously, with so many fewer cars we would transformed most city and suburban roads into parks and walking boulevards. But there's no reason why people couldn't rent a car -- using the Zipcar or Carshare models -- and drive into more rural areas. Similarly, there's no reason why people who live in rural areas wouldn't still own their own vehicles. Public modes of transportation would only be used where practical.
Obviously the above couple paragraphs are just off-the-cuff proposals. The point is that it's not hard to imagine an America largely free of cars, and for that America to seem infinitely more pleasant than the current one. Consider, in cramped cities, how much space is consumed by cars. The real estate used for lots and garages alone could house thousands, be used for parks, bowling alleys, whatever. Consider the noise! Even friendly drivers honk their horns, not to mention the engines.
We need to let go of our obsession with private property. We don't need to own our transportation. This doesn't make us free -- it traps us inside a box.