When an Amtrak train recently slammed into a truck in rural Illinois, car culture once again derailed this country's minimal attempts at maintaining intra-city public transportation. This is a culture war, and the casualties of this particular battle were high: 11 people killed and over 100 injured (no word if any of the victims were Americans). The truck driver survived, claiming the crossing gate and warning lights were late. But current investigations by the National Transportation Safety Board suggest that the driver tried to drive around the gates and beat the train. It's so hard to wait that two minutes while a couple of engines pull a few passenger coaches across the road! This road was made for cars, dammit, not some taxpayer-funded public transit; it's probably a socialist plot. Why don't those people just get in their cars and drive?

I spent many childhood years in the same rural area where this tragic crash occurred. I fondly remember sitting in the truck at railroad crossings, counting freight cars as they hauled grain, cattle, chemical fertilizers and other agricultural and industrial products across the flat, fecund prairie. The train always announced its approach with a long, proud whistle. Apparently the truck driver ignored the Amtrak train's whistle, along with the gate and the signal, in his need to evade any impediment to his speedy travel.

These assholes are everywhere: road-ragers who shoot a driver or two, the truck driver who killed 11 Amtrak passengers, the drunk driver who killed my friend Heather as she bicycled home 15 years ago. More recently I've risked my life while slowly walking across clearly-marked crosswalks. I'm recovering from major abdominal surgery, and walking is essential for my healing. Instead of endlessly circling the block, I sometimes venture across the street between the white lines at the corner (jaywalking is out of the question, since I can't leap out of the way while some macho shit speeds up.) I'm astounded by the overgrown infants who can't tolerate waiting an extra 15 seconds while I reach the curb and flip them off. But car ads don't show drivers carefully negotiating pedestrians, cyclists and traffic, or waiting at train crossings and intersections; they show bold white guys and proudly smiling women in shiny trucks conquering rocky mountain roads, smashing across salmon streams, and peeling around corners. For a mere $35,000 you can buy independence, enjoy nature by crushing and polluting pristine landscapes, ignore the needs (and existence) of other beings, and break away from corporate conformity by driving the most popular SUV.

Washington State continues to defend and subsidize car culture. Last fall voters passed Proposition 49, robbing the state's general fund to pay for unspecified roadbuilding projects and lower auto registration fees (thereby sacrificing, among other things, a decent increase in teacher salaries). Perhaps Seattle Mayor Paul Schell can take a lesson from his adopted country (he owns a home in southern France): Parisiennes enjoy an annual springtime car-free day in their beautiful city! On Sunday, March 21, cyclists and pedestrians take over the streets of Paris, where cars are banned from many parts of the capital city for 9 hours of joyous post-industrial mobility. Over 40,000 cyclists roam the city streets, and 1500 bicycles are loaned out at no cost, allowing more city folk to join the car-free day. The BBC's Steven Jessel noted: "In recent years, Paris has begun to rebel against the tyranny of the car. But cynics say this scheme to make the capital city "greener" owes more to electoral considerations than environmental concerns." I'm not so sure; it's much more enlightened than blindly supporting car culture by keeping fuel prices artificially low and throwing blank checks at roadbuilding projects. Talk about "electoral considerations!" Many Seattle car addicts fuel this retro thinking by challenging attempts to implement light-rail transit.

Vive la Revolution--death to car culture!

Valerie Jean