I hate cars...

...even more than I hate being self-righteous and judgemental.

Since I own a car I feel I can hate cars without being labelled an anti-car bigot. ;-)

Sometimes it's very hard for me to look at what cars have done to our world and not feel angry and sad. Yeah, I know we need cars, well, at least some of us do, some of the time. But do we really need so many of them? And do we need to devote so much of our non-renewable resources to acquiring, maintaining and refueling them? Not to mention the incredible amount of our efforts we've invested in all of the roads and other infrastructure needed to support them. I'm not so sure we haven't fought wars for our cars either.

I can't even begin to count the number of people who I saw driving their cars, alone, to work this morning. Some of them drove hybrids, some of them huge SUVs, some of them mid-size sedans. But almost all of them drove solo. It seems we just can't be bothered to, gasp, carpool!

I don't expect people to bike-commute like I do, or take public transportation; I'm a realist. But carpooling isn't that tough. It seems our personal space is more important to us than the costs of driving so much.

This morning I rode my bike up HWY9 on my way to work when I approached what looked like the big burlap bags that gardeners use for yard waste and sometimes lose from their pickups because they're in too much of a hurry to secure them properly. It fluttered in the wind, on the shoulder of the road.

As I got closer, I found myself instead making eye contact with a beautiful doe, gasping for breath, eyes wild with terror and pain. Somebody had hit this deer and driven off. I was shocked, but not surprised, and stopped to get the deer some help. I had to stop a slight distance past it, for my own sake as well as the deer's, and called my wife to ask her to find the right people to contact. She arranged all of that while I continued my ride. She sure is wonderful. I couldn't help the deer any further, and I couldn't bear to watch it suffer. I was shook up, but unlike the deer I'll get better.

Yeah, I hate cars, but I will try not to waste my energy hating them.

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