Cue a montage of overlapping news sound-bites: "...nearby residents presented a petition of over 500 signatures demanding traffic calming measures...", "...demonstrators blocked the road in front of the school for a total of eight hours...", "...since its installation last year the camera has caught 40,000 speeding motorists...".
Where did it all go wrong? There was a time – not that long ago, even – when motoring was not just a means of getting from A to B, but was also something to be enjoyed; something we were allowed to enjoy. Great stretches of road were built for our convenience and pleasure; our mobility was positively encouraged. But somewhere we took a wrong turn and lost our way. Instead of being applauded as a means to visit and explore, the car has become derided as a destroyer of communities. Instead of being seen as a wondrous tool for efficient door-to-door transportation, it has become an artery clogger that we should abandon because it is too slow, yet simultaneously a ruthless ground-coverer that should be reined in because it is too fast.
We are waist-deep in an anti-car age and struggling to find a branch to haul ourselves out by. But how did we get here? How is it that a nation so clearly in love with its cars – almost regardless of cost – can also hate them so much? 85 per cent of eligible males and 60 per cent of eligible females hold licences, and teenagers are still tripping over themselves to get mobile by motor at the earliest possible opportunity, so who exactly are we fighting? What is this massive force that makes us feel such guilt for daring to enjoy our cars, that makes us almost ashamed to declare a passion for them in polite company?
Sure, there's a handful of small, extremist groups, occupying their time dreaming of a car-free utopia where children can play in the street and where you can leave your front door unlocked at night. They inflict their vision upon the rest of us a couple of times a year by blocking a main thoroughfare or two (always when the weather is nice, you will note), but they are a minority, nothing to worry about, a small fraction of the population who never got the chance to learn to drive, or whose circumstances mean that they can't afford the cost of car ownership (or soap). Their numbers will never stretch beyond that. After all, have you ever heard of anyone who's had a taste of motoring turning their back on it?
Then we've got a government that chooses to lash out at the car. Not through any conviction that it is doing The Right Thing, but because it knows that it can exploit our weakness if it can make is feel bad about our habit. Motorists contribute $137 billion to the economy each year, but in return only $30 billion is spent on transport. Yet guilt buys our silence and our acceptance, and disproportionate reporting that favours sensationalism over education keeps the fear topped up. But the real threat to our motoring pleasure starts much closer to home.
Unlike those small but passionate anti-car groups, ignorance and laziness mean that when we are under attack, we motorists fail to organise ourselves and fight back to redress the balance. And why is it that councils think we want lower limits, more cameras, restricted access, speed bumps and "local traffic zones"? It's because we're asking for them! Sure, we want freedom and rapid progress on our journeys, but in our own street we want everyone to slow down. Well, everyone else, that is, as humorously situated speed traps in response to residents' complaints often prove.
OK, so you and I, motoring enthusiasts, probably aren't that small-minded, but Mr and Mrs Ordinary Average Car User are. Unthinking drivers taking their mobility for granted. And despite never giving a second thought to improving their own driving skills and behaviour, they know for certain that every other driver out there is under-skilled, inattentive and dangerous, and they want protecting from those reckless individuals passing their doorstep. Trouble is, everywhere is someone's doorstep. So the petitions start, the street furniture moves in, and we all have to tackle the obstacle course. And once one neighbourhood gets it, the next neighbourhood wants it: they need protecting too.
It's this frightening lack of thought from so many, mixed with superb propaganda from relatively few, that has led us to this position where cars are perceived as the root of much evil, and to invest more than is strictly necessary for basic five-seats-and-reasonable-economy transportation makes you best mates with Lucifer himself.
It's a sad state of affairs, but what's even sadder is that a large proportion of the blame lies at our own feet. It seems that when it comes to motoring, we're our own worst enemy. When 45% of all accidents happen within 4km home isn't it time to wake up and THINK?
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