Ban Driving, Save Lives
Iraq's prime minister imposed a daytime driving ban in Baghdad and in the province where Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed by American bombs, fearing insurgents will seek to avenge the death of the al-Qaida in Iraq leader.
Full Article, SF Chronicle
43,200 people died on US Highways in 2005. As a result of 9/11, less than 3,000 died. Remind me what our Holy Crusade is again?
So it sounds like Iraq is onto something: Ban driving, save lives. And that gift would keep on giving--we wouldn't have to go invading other countries in order to take their oil in order to power our vehicles. Pollution would drop, as would related health problems. A competent mass transit system could be created. Bicycle lanes would be built far and wide. The power of multinational oil companies would plummet. Ban, or at least come up with ways to limit driving, what a great idea!
TLC
Full Article, SF Chronicle
43,200 people died on US Highways in 2005. As a result of 9/11, less than 3,000 died. Remind me what our Holy Crusade is again?
So it sounds like Iraq is onto something: Ban driving, save lives. And that gift would keep on giving--we wouldn't have to go invading other countries in order to take their oil in order to power our vehicles. Pollution would drop, as would related health problems. A competent mass transit system could be created. Bicycle lanes would be built far and wide. The power of multinational oil companies would plummet. Ban, or at least come up with ways to limit driving, what a great idea!
TLC
posted by TLC's Place at 6:05 AM
3 Comments:
Amen, isn't it amazing how many people die on the road every year? but we don't seem conscious about it as a nation. It has stopped shocking us. Ridiculous if you ask me.
DOn't you think it's only a matter of time before people start suing the car companies...for making them die in their automobiles??? seems logical given all the other suits.
I’d love to see the automobile manufacturers sued for so many reasons. For example, the collusion between the automobile industry and the oil cartels, the refusal to create engines that run on other energy sources (e.g. solar, water), the refusal to make vehicles that pollute less, the refusal to design vehicles that use more recyclable components, the refusal to manufacture lighter vehicles that use less energy whatever its source, etc. etc..
But any lawsuit would be confronted with questions such as:
--How much pollution is attributed to each manufacturer?
--How long does that pollution cause harm?
--To the extent that vehicle pollution settles to Earth, it then gets in our food and water—how do we assess the impact of that?
--What of foreign vehicle manufacturers?
--Given that there are so many sources of air pollution, how does one distinguish the harm caused vehicle pollution from that originating from other causes?
--The US Federal Government has set pollution and other standards. Does that carry with it some sort of immunity/make the whole thing a “political issue” of the type that Courts won’t decide? See, for example, this article on a “greenhouse gases” lawsuit that was thrown out for that reason, http://tinyurl.com/r57f8. I’ll save for another time the atrocious case of Bush v. Gore, which made a twisted joke of the legal system and should have destroyed the legal fiction of the “political issue” doctrine, but see, e.g., http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/sunstein/chapter9.html.
There might be creative ways of using the courts to attack the problem in “bite-sized portions”, but the current legal system just isn’t set up to tackle The Big Picture (although if someone with expertise on class action lawsuits has a winning strategy I would be delighted to be enlightened).
Given the enormity of the problem, I think the best angle is to tackle it using the elected branches of government. And that’s what the elites fear most, because the government is the only entity that is controllable by the masses without drastic changes (although Diebold and other forces are working hard to eliminate the electoral avenue… http://blackboxvoting.org and http://blackboxvoting.com/s9)
TLC
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