----- Original Message ----- From: "Bruce Gaarder" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2002 8:13 AM Subject: [Mpls] car facts
> Just to respond to a couple of things posted about cars. > > Ken Avidor quoted the 1998 fatalities related to cars, 41,000+. To put > that in perspective, back in 1900, when there were essentially no cars > and almost nobody in the country ever journeyed more than 200 miles from > home and the population was less than a third of what it is now, 4,200 > people were killed by horses. Between 1900 and 1920, 9,000 people a year > were killed by trains, with 19,000 in 1919. > Don't believe everything you here or read. The same statistics can be used, like the Bible, to advocate two sides of the same argument. A couple of omissions and fallacies in Bruce's argument: Those horse fatalities are not all transportation related. In fact most are probably farm related. However, he didn't cite how many people are killed in farm accidents in recent years. Farming is one of the most dangerous occupations. Trains are far safer to travel in "deaths per million passenger miles", "per capita deaths", any way you want to size it. It's pretty ludicrous to claim otherwise. It is clear by any measure that traffic deaths are way up over the period cited. Travel by car is the most dangerous mode of travel known to man. Riding rockets is safer. Just ask yourself, do I want to take my chances with a drunk on a horse or a drunk in a two ton Ford Explorer? > It's quite clear that transportation related deaths are way down on a deaths > per million passenger miles basis, and probably down on a deaths per capita > basis. > > Annie Young quoted a figure of $24 a day for owning and operating a car. > That's $8,760 a year. Only if you buy an expensive new car and trade it > in every three years, finance almost all of it, and do other non-thrifty > things, could you drive up the cost so far. My car costs about $2,400 a > year, keeping it 12-15 years. And of course, people without a lot of money > buy a car for around $1,000 and run it until it drops and buy another. I agree with Robin Garwood, the costs of owning an automobile are far higher than the out of pocket expense for the "consumer" (shouldn't that be a four letter word?). Add to insurance, gas, upkeep, and purchase price the tax money spent on building and maintaining roads and highways, the lost time in commuting that people could spend productively (or not) in the economy, the costs to our health and the environment, the costs of policing polluters. And don't forget the cost of fighting foreign wars and killing poor people and further enriching billionaire despotic monarchs in backward countries like Saudi Arabia that we call "friends". Yes, I'd say it's clear. The automobile is a fabulous thing. Destroying our communities, our families, our health, and our planet in a remarkably quick and efficient manner. And boy don't I look stylin' in one? "What's good for General Motors is good for America." May the American love affair with automobiles rust in peace. Matthew Devany Powderhorn _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
