Reducing motor vehicle infrastructure due to severe environmental, social and economic costs
From Austin Bicycle Helmet Law
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Revision as of 07:57, 4 July 2006
From "Driver's Ed: A Million Miles Later." by Stanley Crawford, DESIGNER/builder magazine, July-August, 2004
"I have owned cars and pickups whose fuel consumptions ranged from 11 to 50 miles per gallon. At 25 miles per gallon, my likely average, I burned 40,000 gallons of gas and diesel over the course of one million miles... A million miles requires 250 oil changes adding up to 300 to 400 gallons of oil, plus fifty transmission-fluid changes, another 50 or 60 gallons of fluid. I have worn out some 133 tires, assuming I have averaged 30,000 miles per tire... My cars have required batteries every five years on average, for a total of 100 (I have usually owned two cars at a time), weighing about two tons. In antifreeze, add another 100 to 200 gallons... Assuming most vehicles can reach 200,000 miles with reasonable care before being junked, I've been responsible for the manufacture of five cars or about 20,000 pounds of steel, glass, plastic, paint, and other materials, for which I have paid approximately $140,000, plus another $10,000 in interest. Another 400,000 pounds of fuel and resources were used up in the production of those five new cars. I estimate that repairs and maintenance, some of which I am able to do, have cost $500 a year each for my vehicles, or $50,000. In my fifty years of driving with no serious accidents I have paid $60,000 in insurance... Those are back-of-the-envelope figures we million-milers might more or less agree on."
"In sum, my out-of-pocket costs for my million miles will be in this range: Cost of vehicles, including interest: $150,000. Gas, oil, fluids: $50,000. Repairs, including tires, batteries: $50,000. Insurance: $60,000. Total: $310,000."
"[We spend about] twelve years of eight-hour-days driving our one million miles, assuming we have averaged about thirty miles an hour."
"...this is just the beginning. Every automobile generates costs which are externalized out into society and the environment. ... Tailpipe emissions are a major source of air pollution. Our cars contribute about a pound of carbon per mile toward global climate change. To a lesser degree they distribute particulate matter from brake shoes and pads and metal parts and tires. ... The effluvia from leaking oil pans and transmission and power steering and bearing seals and grease fitting and radiator hoses and the soluble portions of asphalt pavement itself pass into storm drains and foul waterways and beaches. ... As automobile users, we will be billed for some of these costs through taxes and the health effects on ourselves and our families, but on the whole most of them will be passed on to the environment, which will ultimately bill us in other ways."
"A large portion of our income tax payments goes toward covering the cost of wars and other military expenses needed to keep sea lanes open to support repressive oil-producing regimes in order to maintain a reliable supply of petroleum. Our right to drive is assured by the largest military budget and the best-equipped military force the world has ever known."
"...in the act of driving we vigorously oppose everything else we believe in."
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"Amount of greenhouse-warming carbon gas released by driving a typical American car, in one day: 3 kilograms."
"The Price of Beef," WorldWatch, July/Aug 1994, pg 39
