While our roads remain as they are, and present speeds are kept up, the slaughter will continue…"
—George Orwell, on the hypocrisy of “blame the victim” traffic campaigns.
(Shown with his newly adopted son in stroller.)
That might have been true at Orwell’s time, but these days with traffic as bad as it is and lack of parking space, I think the real value proposition that people get from cars is driving around in their own private space. I still think we should not value that over human life (although traffic accidents are probably less relevant over the environmental pollution cars cause these days), but when advocating against cars it is better to understand why people cling to them, and speed usually isn’t it.
I agree, it’s not even about speed or efficiency, in fact trains and other public transportation combined with better planning of cities etc could be way better in these spheres. Cars are a thing because public transportation has been underfunded in favor of the profits of the auto industry and many who can use cars don’t want to get worse service while being among the “poors,” along with the fact that all our crappy infrastructure is based around cars, and the advertising brainwashing us into a consumerist and individualist lifestyle.
