Where are we heading?

OK, so I go on and on about this. Cars are great fun but gee they stuff everything up. Suburbs carved in two by 4 or 6-lane roads that stop pedestrians from crossing - unless they too don protective wheeled armour and drive over there... housing estates built in paddocks miles from transport (everyone has a car so what's it matter?). Massive super shops built away from old fashioned strip or village-style shopping centres, surrounded by carparks and almost inaccessible by public transport. Makes some sense if we want to be lazy, want to get fat and unfit and expect petrol to be cheap forever. Or are we hoping that an alternative fuel will appear and save us all, at the right price, of course.

So we agreed to this, right? We voted for this future - massive obesity, illness, poor air quality and dysfunctional satellite living - by buying cars. Then we went further and begged for faster, bigger roads that took away more of the people-friendly villages. Then we got road rage and constant aggro because - isolated so supremely in our steel and plastic conveyances - we no longer see our fellow drivers as people. We whinge about speed limits and blame the government for speeding fines - because it wasn't our fault. It's just revenue raising (as if governments raise money just for fun. Umm, don't they then spend it on us, for us?).

The revenue raising policing of road rules - especially speeding has nothing to do with trying to slow us all down so we can relax a bit, allow other people to merge or change lanes safely or - more obviously - to turn across our paths with some measure of certainty. No, of course not! But do we whinge when we are waiting to turn right (or left in other countries) and some "idiot" comes around that blind corner at 20 klicks above the legal limit. How the hell can we be so unaware of thsoe around us? Of course we do it too, but hey!

Phew. And I haven't even mentioned gutless drivers who swerve and swear at cyclists. As if someone riding a bike actually poses a threat to a car driver. Worst case - they'll slow you down for a few seconds. Big deal. Get out on a bike in the fresh air and get a life.