Cars

"It's the only way to live, in cars" - Gary Numan

Being one of those unfortunate people who have never owned or even driven a car, the issue of personal transport has never really afflicted me. It is hard for me to comprehend concepts like the volume of petrol a car can get through in a day, or even its basic essentiality for everyday life. However, from the numerous people I know who own cars, it’s quite obvious just how troublesome the transport situation of Britain can be. Topics such as the price of maintenance and insurance often forefront in people’s minds with speed limits and traffic jams following close behind but rarely the case of how bad cars are for the environment. On the other hand there is the public transport system, which receives a fair amount of criticism from those who use it and those who don’t. Being a veteran of buses and trains alike, it is easy enough to state every minor flaw when it comes to presentation and experience but criticising the ability to travel to most parts of the country is much harder to do.
For me and probably many others, life would be very different without the public transport system our government provides. Living a considerable distance from the majority of my friends for most of my life, social activities would have been much more difficult to participate in. It’s hard to imagine what would have happened without buses allowing me to go see my friends. Before coming to University I only had one friend who owned a car. Once that car came into his possession, changes in his personality were evident. Suddenly everything started to cost much more money than he deemed worth, money that could be spent on a friendly drink with friends would now be used to buy petrol or to fund customising his car in some way or another and every walk was now just too far. Car drivers are incredibly lazy I’ve discovered over the years. The mobility that a car provides has been both a benefit and a loss. Transport, along with readymade meals and the internet has made everything so easy that people are so very infrequently motivated to do anything that may require effort. It’s said that a lack of fitness can be derived from the over dependence on cars and it’s not hard to imagine.
Negativities aside, the car has revolutionised society. Much like buses and trains but to a higher degree, it allows anyone to travel wherever they like whenever they like. Parts of the country that were never accessible before have now became accessible for the first time and aside from luxury, the car now proves essential to everyday working life. That is partly where the transport problem lies. The over-dependency on cars means that people are very reluctant to use different methods of transport and that will ultimately result in catastrophe. However, I feel I belong to the school of thought that deems itself technologist. That is I believe that technology will eventually find a way to solve any problem that may be apparent. So really it is difficult for me to say that I think there will still be a problem in the future. I have no doubt that some form of renewable energy will be discovered or harnessed that will solve any of Earths energy problems. For instance, nuclear fusion will no doubt become the world’s number one source of energy once it has been harnessed properly as its waste product is merely water. However, even if that is discovered tomorrow, it will still take years to implement into the transport system. The technology will no doubt be far too bulky to situate inside an automobile let alone be safe enough. Therefore even though technology may be the long term answer, there is still a lot that needs to be done in the short term.
A lot of drivers don’t consider the indirect costs to car ownership but only concentrate on direct out-of-pocket costs such as fuel and insurance. For example, with an increasing number of cars, more roads will need to be made in order to cope. In America 60% of the gas tax contributes towards the construction of these roads. So if more roads are needed, tax must be increased. Maybe the tax will not be increased on petrol but it will have to come from somewhere which will still indirectly affect car owners. It’s not all bad though. The production of cars, as stated by this article below, created the middle class:
http://www.ehow.com/how-does_4899992_how-did-automobile-change-america.html
Steady work was now available to the masses. The car also created the world of suburbs. Now workers could easily commute to work each day, explore new areas of the country and visit the seaside.
In my opinion, the benefits of cars easily outweigh the cost to the environment. I am one of those that firmly believe that technology will solve any problem that is thrown at the world. It might be subtle such as a new way to eradicate technology or it could be huge like populating Mars. Either way I’m not one to live in fear and neither should anyone else. There are those who are paid to worry about the environment and then there are those who are paid to fix it. For everyone else, life carries on and not many are going to give up their mobility if they don’t have to. So no, there is not a transport problem, there is only a delay before we crack it.