At one time the number one rule of "Rules of the Road" was "avoid an accident at all times" during days when roads were held sacred by The Constitution as public grounds... and still essentially are. Roads were shared daily by horses, carriages, trolleys, bicyclist, drivers, and pedestrians. A tragic incident of a horse being spooked, or a trolley that couldn't stop, that resulted in a death were rarities, and usually front page news. The high speeds of 12mph being the average American pre-industrial town and city speed limit meant that the streets within towns and cities could bustle with of all sorts of varied commuter traffic with a wide freedom of transportation options. While accidents did happen they were not very often fatal, destructive, or even an impedance. Bicycle clubs that consisted of doctors, lawyers, and businessmen joined together on slow rides to and from work to discuss current events and shared knowledge... it was the original social network. Horses and carriages often had two minds at work, and a good horse usually is as aware as it's driver. Odd inventions took the street with the form of steam powered cars, electric tricycles, combustion engines, and sterling (external) combustion engine vehicles. To better the infrastructure for all, Albert Pope, producer of Columbia Bikes, set out to start and fund the "Good Roads Act" through his organization The League of Wheel-men. The Good Roads movement funded and enacted by bicyclists paved the way for a solid and uniform infrastructure, which was quickly manipulated and wrangled by a new set of powers that set the cornerstone to The Federal Reserve Bank of 1913, ...predetermined to bank on the highly profitable oil cartels and the infrastructure that would be built up around in support of it... an infrastructure now ruled by fossil fuel burning multi-ton vehicles that have been crammed full of the latest living room gadgets to impress and then let sent hurdling down roads at 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80mph... in hopes to avoid an accident... if not, let coffin experience help the auto industry save a few more lives with their latest in innovative (more expensive) safety features.. Today the speeds, average weights, and an over burdened infrastructure have slowly slipped this rule of "avoid an accident at all time" for rules on what to do when you can't avoid an accident, as mandatory insurance pretty much dictates that everyone that drives today's vehicle are in question of actually being able to control that vehicle at all times, ...as the nearly 7,000,000 recorded accidents in the US per year show. Why does the industry standards push for safety and standards in 100 year old technology that directly costs the lives of more than 30,000 people a year, whose fossil based fuel source is also linked to childhood respiratory and asthmatic diseases, which process and use of produces know carcinogens, whose fuel industry is linked to human rights violation, funding oppressive governments for land rights, and some of the worst environmental damages of any other industry, ...all while safer, faster, and cheaper modes of mass transit sit on the drawing boards waiting for the consumerism of all the pump monkeys to drain themselves out? While the car industry helps put you into the car of your dreams at no less than "how much you have in your bank account and how much you make... for the next 6 years" in this debt based society, so you can get to that job, relying on that vehicle to help you deathly circumvent and avoid accidents in a system with unavoidable accidents, ...only to toil enough wages to pay for all expenditures thus due from "the dream machines" purchase and upkeep, which you also drive home, narrowly avoiding disaster and damage at any turn... only with the knowledge you need to put that on repeat for the "life" of the car.. which by most statistics will be ended by an accident. In relation, a regulated 12mph bouncy ball with a seat in the middle wouldn't rely on a new hood or 10,000's of dollars in safety equipment if it bounced off a solid brick wall... a 12mph rubber box would never lose it's shape or kill it's occupants. Of course, none of those would bring a false sense of distinction, prestige, value, class, or power, ...as the simple life of squirrels, raccoon, possums, dear, or even a pedestrian or cyclist snuffed out by a "modern" vehicle with regards to a "modern" society as this is the reward of such an over qualification of a personal convenience and transport, supported guilt free by mandatory insurance. As potential owners go helplessly into debt to obtain one, spend fortunes every week on gas and monthly insurance simply for the pleasure of using one, risking monetary misfortune, life and limb in driving one, pay insurance companies to insure their unavoidable accidents while the insurance companies bid on and buy treasury bonds that have been repackaged with the cars original loan and interest already within it, the car owner shouts excitedly at holding the certificate of title, and the state laughs as they wave the real one. While daily and routine trips average under 20 miles and most average in town speeds of less than 20mph, the clear justification of a muscle car that can reach 185mph becomes obvious ...the false sense of freedom, or the compensation for the lack there of. The parading of one's monetary position clearly peacocked by the bigger of liabilities their willing to put in harm's way. Meanwhile, mag lift trains that can transport Americans city to city at 4,000mph powered by electricity from massive geo thermal plants won't stand in the way of wasting our time and our money on nostalgia, loyalty, and the warm fuzzy feeling of a beloved family member that comes in the form of a shiny box on wheels, fully loaded for your distracted pleasure, and soon to be a future crushed metal block at the bottom of a junk pile when the unavoidable happens. Perpetuating idiocy by complicity within wasteful consumerism of a repetitive nature can be completely diverted with a little foresight and a forceful will to forget, to put away, and let retire, the ancient misconceptions of the old transportation infrastructure, the high school popularity standings of a model type and the insecurities that come without one, ...barely engineered as survivable death traps, and the use of them in masses which bring record profits to those who proliferate them through legislation, subsidies, laws, and media, only to be reflected in a human's life of committed servitude and the constant willingness of the threat of death or permanent injury, to stare blankly ahead and claim a sense of freedom and the pride of the illusion of ownership of one of today's modern vehicles that operate within the safe, effective, well organized, polished and pearled infrastructure it will surely some day be totaled on. (satire)
