I do like cars, really I do

I do like cars, really I do. It's just I seem to find more and more to dislike about them as well. Here's a list of goodnesses:

1. Expanded mobility (fancy way of saying I can go where I want, quicker and further than a push bike and almost irrespective of how fit or well I feel)
   
2. Expanded flexibility of scheduling (fancy way to say I can go when I want)
3. Increased freedom from borrowing, renting or otherwise engaging trucking concerns to shift small to medium loads
4. I can do all the above for other people, too (great for social networking)
   
5. It's fun and somehow empowering pressing on a go pedal and just accelerating.

As I've said before, cars also drag us down into a pit of despair. When there was just one car in the street (back in the 1930s, say) it looked really elitist to actually own one, but gee people wanted to know you and it didn't harm too many people if you drove it around carefully. We were still a community after all and it was safe to cross the road.

Now we have cut down trees and destroyed farmland and communities by paving everywhere, dedicated multistorey carparks to the damned things, built special multi-car houses for 'em alongside or maybe inside our own homes, and become so accustomed to them that it's annoying when we can't take our cars with us everywhere. Sure they are convenient but now everyone wants one and they are so cheap almost all of us has at least one. I have 3.

How much iron have we dug up, how much oil have we burned and how much energy have we wasted in building these personal transport devices and creating the perfect automotive world around them? How do we cost this in land lost to pavement? How do we cost the air and noise pollution? The accident and incident costs? The loss of exercise and consequent health issues? Now multiply that by the rest of the world catching up with the so-called 'first world' rate of car ownership. What happens when most of the 6 billion people on the planet also own a car? Does the planet fall in a heap? Probably.

Still, as I said, they are fun. And if you are going to drive you may as well understand a bit about how cars work. I have written here about handling. And here about Alfa Romeos. Don't blame me, we all bought this one and now we all have to pay!