Unabashed

Automobiles have never been efficient, but they’ve always been economical. And that’s even more evident today than ever before. I remember when I was younger how common it was to see an older car or truck running on the road. But you don’t see that much any more. It’s too easy to buy a new car, or even a new-used car, just a few years old. When I was a kid it wasn’t unusual to see a car driving down the road that was 20 years old or more. Today, it’s unusual to see a car much more than ten or twelve years old. Most anything so old as twenty years is considered vintage and is considered a collectible.

There was a time when buying a car didn’t mean you were identifying yourself, too. Today, you have to consider what the car says about you, you have to consider what it means to drive a Sebring, or a Hummer, or a BMW. Status has always been a consideration when buying a car, but it’s never been anything like it is now. Now there are tons of cars in the $50-75k price range. You don’t just choose from one or two. You decide which of the ten or twenty you can choose from correctly represents your personality. Everyone knows a similarly-priced Mercedes or a Hummer makes a statement about your level of income, but a Hummer delivers a completely different message than a Mercedes.

Buy my, how times do change, and how quickly they do it. Now, looking at someone driving a Hummer my first thought isn’t the desired “battle-ready” that I’m sure most Hummer owners want to project. I do think of dollar signs, yes, but the specific dollar signs I see are the ones they ring up at the pump. And it’s never been more evident how much pollution cars are spewing from the tailpipe. Now that it’s no longer exactly economical to drive everywhere, I’m hearing a whole new class of folks bemoaning their gasoline bills. The guy who sprays my house for insects mentioned this morning how great it would be if someone would invent a new power source for cars. I told him, “They’re working on it.” And then we had a nice little conversation about MIT’s pledge to deliver a more efficient photovoltaic system, even edging into the territory of all-too believable conspiracy theory, said he: “You know there’d probably already be something if it wasn’t for the oil lobbyists in Washington.” Yes, Big Oil definitely wants to keep us hooked on the pipeline they provide.

So what are the benefits of absurdly high gas prices? Well, for one, it’s entirely possible you might see a revitalization of small-town America. The super stores have all but killed commerce in the little towns, but it’s not too far beyond reason to presume that people will start shopping closer to home, that they might opt to drive ten minutes to a small grocery store than thirty minutes to a Wal-Mart. But the biggest benefit is one I’ve already stated: That more and more people, from previously unlikely places, are wanting to see a change. That the guy who drives the Hummer might just say, “Man, I sure wish I was driving a hybrid.” That people will actually begin to care what kind of efficiency the cars they buy might have. And, even better, that interest alone might be the provocation enough to develop a mass transit system for the country, and an improved drivetrain for cars. Personally, I find it rather appalling that we don’t have better mass transit systems than we do. Previously, if improved transit was needed from Baltimore to New York, they would just widen the interstate, rather than build a better system.

It’s hard to believe there’s no bullet train in America.