Lunch Hour Thoughts #2

On "Car Culture" and Rites of Passage.

This is a continuation of my ongoing challenge to write more, and to get a thousand or more words out during my lunch hour at the office. More essays and subscriber exclusive to come.

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"Car Culture" is something that I don't give much serious consideration, at least in part because when the phrase comes to mind I associate it with car clubs, auto shows, and those who have four or five beater cars that they're working on. I know those guys, good with their hands, incredibly intelligent. I suppose my father is one of those men, came with growing up with my grandfather who was a repairman who went and worked on just about everything, from industrial equipment, factory lines, washing machines, you name it. "Car Culture" is usually a catch-all term I see with respects to urban planning, or any discussion that revolves around transportation infrastructure, although it does run deeper than that.

Deep enough to make one realize that true autonomy is the vehicle you drive in America. As much as I loathe the oft-rehashed ruralite-urbanite discourse, the car is a fundamental aspect to American life in both those areas, and essentially a do-or-die requirement in the suburbs. America's public transportation doesn't receive the assistance or investment that it should, and it is often associated with being low class, "this guy doesn't have a car" is basically saying that the dude's a eunuch. This doesn't have the same connotation with women, although I am always surprised when I meet someone who doesn't know how to drive, regardless of one's sex. For most of us, we commute to work, our third places, our places of worship, dinner with friends both at homes and out and about. I'm actually writing this before my usual lunch hour, because I will be getting in my car to take my friend out to dinner for her birthday.

Driving to places like Dallas or Waxahachie make one want to pull their hair out, the inhuman frustration of sitting in traffic knowing the dangers and risks that come with driving a two thousand pound self guided missile down a busy highway or interstate knowing just something could go wrong and add hours onto your drive home. There are studies that indicate that traffic has a tendency to increase stress and heart health risks and I wholeheartedly believe it. I once drove down near the DFW airport to have dinner with my friend Auron and I was just about ready to go postal myself. Although my temper is my own problem to bear, I am often rehashing my grumbling and yelling in traffic during confession.

"With a car, you can go anywhere" - the copypasta that everyone knows where "X could be here" is the main reason why you drive. A car is the low-intensity (although sometimes not) way to escape, knowing to avoid certain parts of a town or knowing that certain gas stations have had card skimming problems in the past so you avoid them to the best of your ability. This is the underlying reality of much of transportation systems, let's not kid ourselves. People want to avoid where crime is, or where one would get in trouble and avoid the 9 billion names of criminality.

Yet, despite the politics and racial undertones that are part of that catch-all term, I love the open road. The vehicle becomes an extension of yourself, just like with any tool or media, as you head for a new view that is rapidly changing from your window's view. Living out in farmland, where I have more cow for neighbors than I do people, so to get in my car and see rolling fields of green pasture, rivers and vast amounts of undeveloped land is akin to seeing the before photo of something awful to come. But since moving to where I live now, a consequence perhaps of my idealization with the open road or the jobs I've held requiring me to drive - it has been a way to get out and get around. It is however fleeting, it is an everyday and empowering sense of control and the ability to spontaneously get up and go if you so choose.

Having grown up overseas as a military brat, I do have respect and admiration for the public transit (both bus and rail) of the Germans, French, and the English. Having come of age back in America and getting my license at 16, driving really was American (however lacking in depth or meaning) rite of passage for a man. You can drive to school, your job, and pick up your girlfriend, you were on track to living that good life if you could keep it. There are problems with this, but I've got a good work, social, and spiritual life, and the car certainly helps keep it that way. If there was one song that could best embody this sensation it would be Rush’s Red Barchetta. And just like the song, the “motor law” was a method of controlling that escape hatch, that opportunity to pass something down to your children. One of the earliest videos I did was called “Closing Out the Exits” where I had discussed a repo job that had a tesla pull itself out of a garage making it easier for the man to tow it away. Between computers with wheels and environmental regulations, it will behoove those with older cars to take care of them the best they can.

The car is an expensive, but its culture and our dependency uniquely American experience, one that I don’t expect everyone to get but if the opportunity arises take the time to take a drive.