Hi, Richard!

I live in what amounts to a suburb: outside a small town surrounded by farmland that's located between two cities, and not much farther from a third. Because of the lack of mass transit (which I used and loved while I lived in cities, many years ago) our family must drive everywhere except, ironically, the gas station that doubles as a small grocery store. Oh, and the bowling alley.

I hear what everyone is saying here, especially people who need larger vehicles to transport family. Four children in this one, and one of them in college, which means moving house twice a year.

My issue is with people who routinely drive these things with no discernable reason, and I wonder if it's just because there is insufficient incentive for them to change this habit. I militated for a motorized roller skate, used (very used) to run around town and get me to work and back once my role as transportation mistress for the preschool and kindergarten set, and newspaper deliverer to the world, was finished. The minivan sat in the driveway until we needed it for a family trip or to transport junk like Christmas trees. This is still the situation, only it's an SUV that pulls the duty now.

Do I think that We the People should ticket those who drive alone to the Walmart in a pickup truck to buy a pair of tweezers? No. But why drive the big car all the time if another, less expensive, more conservation-conscious approach exists? Can we market that approach and make it more attractive? Is it possible to provide incentives for driving smaller cars as second vehicles without penalizing those whose primary vehicles must be large because of need? We can't count on the automobile manufacturers to encourage fuel efficiency unless there's a market for it first, and they're making an awful lot of money selling the big cars to want to go back to the bad old days of the small ones. What would work?

I actually think that, around here, it's mostly a status thing to drive the big cars. They're too shiny to have been used for much heavy hauling, and those with less money are driving rusted-out sedans. I hear a lot about how we're at war. All that Pearl Harbor talk is less than a year old. Are we willing to be at war the way the nation was during World War II, with people conserving and pulling together and finding pride in making do to help the war effort, or are we still in the Phony War phase? We seem eager enough to give up our civil liberties -- well, other people's civil liberties -- for a little safety. Where's the urge to work together economically for the security of the nation? Isn't there some status in that? Can we make saving gasoline an issue of pride and patriotism, or is the line drawn at being frisked at airports without complaint?

Our ways of looking at issues are colored by where we live and what we see. Re: the previous thread of posts: Before condemning the political agenda of those who advocate mass transit and smaller vehicles, I suggest looking at the practical experiences of those people. I assure you, I tell them about my neighbor with the huge van and the five kids, and if they say the family is too big, I smile sweetly and point out that two are special-needs adoptees. That shuts them up in a hurry.

There really is a middle way. cue music It's a small world after all, it's a small small world...

Best--
Mary Anne