The Crime of Driving

The more i watch people's driving behaviour these days - despite the worldwide attention now given to climate change - the more i tend to consider driving as a crime. By driving i mean most of all the single riding of fossil fuel driven automobiles. Instead of relying less on the catastrophically inefficient combustion engine (25 % i think), many of my hopelessly un-conscious (or cynical?) fellow citizens now purchase and drive about even bigger, more wasteful and (in a country with no rocky deserts or bumby country roads) totally unnecessary 4x4 models. Men especially are unbelieveably, uncurably fascinated by these machines. With our roads already hopelessly overburdened, they still use them to cover even short distances (where public transport is easily available) and thus feed constant traffic jams. The absurdity of the situation is such that i feel like exploding: hundreds of jeep-like monster cars (and others), each carrying one passenger, most of the time just stopped (with the engine running of course, plus air conditioning), are lavishly burning precious fuel and relentlessly spilling out CO2, and no one except me seems to find it in the least disturbing!
Yes, driving has definitely become a crime; i believe that the automobile itself will end up being regarded as the most devastating invention in human history. Its impact is far worse than that of all weapons of mass destruction combined: consider
the use of resources, energy and water and the release of CO2 during production, use, and scrapping;
the amount of terrain and habitat (including trees) lost for road building;
the enormous infrastructure created to serve car-based life styles, including centralized shopping and recreation facilities;
the unemployment, crime, and anonymity issues in the wake of these developments;
the huge health problems in and around cities because of air pollution, noise, stress, and lack of physical activity (walking);
the ensuing need for an industry of 'fitness management' which again needlessly swallows up countless resources;
the immense number of lethal accidents involving cars, with both human and animal victims;
wars being planned, their necessity imposed on voters, and waged for the sake of oil;
and i could go on, but i'm tired of it ... .

(Illustration by Gerhard Haderer)