F*** the Drive Thru

The bland and the transparent are ubiquitous. Luminas, Accords, SUVs, and ghastly fuel-sucking pickups crowd the freeways of Atlanta and every other city in the US with their V6 engines and seamless automatic transmissions. It takes a trained and cautious eye to see these vehicles in traffic. They work, but who wants to pay thousands for an appliance?

It gets kind of depressing, watching flotillas of Sentras and Civics jockeying about the Perimeter with Yukons and Explorers, F150s and Dakotas.

One knows that these people are voting. They have chosen ennui. The drivers have made a statement every bit as telling as the ratings for carbon copy sitcoms and soap operas. They have chosen security over liberty; they have embraced the inoffensive and flavorless in a passionless declaration of indifference.

It is a statement worthy of tears. Even the economy models, which once demanded that the driver invest some part of himself in the experience of using the machine, have fallen into the trap of isolating the driver with a sound system and an automatic transmission.

Push a button and it goes. Push another and it stops.

Frankly, someone driving one of these automatic mushmobiles is making the first step toward returning to mass transit. It is only one step from the old proletariat uniforms of Communist China or North Korea. These are the people who befoul the air because they are either too lazy or too paranoid to get out of the vehicle when getting a Big Mac. What was once a decent idea has now become fodder for an experience that too many of us understand: They (have an illicit sexual relationship with) you at the Drive-Thru.

The Opel Kadetts and Morris Minors of the 1960s have given way to the Toyota Echo and the Hyundai Accent of today. This is not a condemnation of the greater virtues of these autos, merely the fact that an environment that includes drive through everything-even mortuaries that serve the bereaved from the comfort of their Tauruses and Santa Fes-has destroyed the practicality and enjoyment of simple, involving cars like the original Volkswagen Beetle and the Volvo 122 with their manual steering and clutch pedals.

If there were an honest desire to improve the quality of air and life in the United States, it would be best served by closing the Drive Thrus, and taxing automatic transmissions like Marlboros in New York City. Cell Phone laws woud not be necessary if a driver had to use all his limbs to operate the blessed car.

This is the point where people who normally want Government to do something about a problem are shrieking "Oh hell no!" Half of the drivers on the road cannot drive a stickshift.
A big chunk of the rest are devoted to the Drive Thru. A tax on automatic transmissions would be waived for persons with a handicap that prevents them from using a clutch or shifting gears.
(While we're at it, let's end zoning that shunts all business to expressway off ramps and cutesy-poo "neighborhood covenants" that prohibit businesses from going closer to homes. Apartment complexes on the Atlanta model can go the way of 45rpm records, too. 100,000 square feet of discount department store with 50 acres of paved parking? Not the best idea.)

The greenies are now jumping up and down. Their ever-tightening regulation of the automobile has taken the fun out of driving one. Take regulation off cars with engines under 1.2 liters of displacement. The only regulation that would be necessary for diesels would be lower sulfur content in diesel fuel.

United States auto manufacturers could take this as an opportunity like no other. Deregulated 1.2 liter superminis could generate huge profits, while handling four people in reasonable comfort. The Big 3 already have the products in place in Europe and through their Asian affiliates. Involving the driver has been a huge component of the success of Honda, BMW, and Mazda in the United States.

Regulate vehicles over 3 liters. This is not to say that these should not be available, but to consider a six-liter engine, with only the driver, sitting in clogged traffic is to acknowledge that the politcal environment in this country has encouraged profilgate, myopic behavior.

No one wants to look back on $3 a gallon as "the good old days," as our friends in Europe and Japan do. But it is incumbent upon us as a nation to consider solutions that will improve our standard of living for a better, safer, and cleaner future.

There is no better start than by suiting our automobiles for driving and abandoning non-driving tasks inside our automotive environments.