I DON’T HATE CARS

by Joe Hanrahan

I don’t hate cars, they’re just inanimate heaps of metal, rubber and plastic that can take us to faraway, wonderful places with a whole bunch of crap.

I don’t hate cars, I just hate the way most of them sound. Particularly the ones that are trying to sound cool….they just sound worse.

I don’t hate cars, I hate how we have built an tremendously expensive and often dysfunctional transportation system entirely around them. And then we fill it up with cars and build more again.

I don’t hate cars, I hate how they are marketed and regarded culturally as objects of freedom, when in reality they are financial anchors. Interest, maintenance, gas, insurance, depreciation, and parking are certainly not free. Not to mention the environmental externalities.

I don’t hate cars, I hate how so many of our communities have been carved up by arterial roads with few, if any, truly safe places to cross them.

I don’t hate cars, I hate how they make us humans act when we get in them. I’m guilty of it myself...that alter-ego has been named “closet asshole” and there is one in all of us. They emerge behind the autoglass like Candyman.

I don’t hate cars, but I sure do hate parking lots. Except for empty, multi-story parking garages when I’m on a bike, ideally with a bunch of friends. There's a delightfully post-apocalyptic feel to those experiences. 

I don’t hate cars, but I hate the entire car advertising industry. Except for the couple of times some friends in Moab got paid to ride bikes in their ads. Besides those few instances, I hate auto advertising because it pushes false expectations. High speeds, empty city streets, perfectly flat and supportive fields of snow…when the reality is speeding tickets, unsafe driving, bumper-to-bumper traffic, rage and morons stuck axle deep in snow.

I don’t hate cars, but I hate how they smell. New-car smell is gross. Diesel smell is gross. Burning brake smell is gross.

I don’t hate cars, but I hate the use of cars as IG/Tiktok/Twitter/YourTube rant confessionals. There is correlation here between the ‘internet car rant’ and the performative assholery behavior that cars enable and empower. 

I don’t hate cars, I really just hate short trips in them.