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Show Talie Away Car? I There are forces at work whose aim is to deprive you of the right to have an au- 'tomobile. . i THESE forces include 0 government appointees, 1 elected officials, professors, f environmentalists and others, notes the Automotive Information Infor-mation Council. For eiample, a White I House energy advisor ia quoted quot-ed as saying "Cars should be eliminated and people should walk or ride bikes. I've never ' : been to Pelting, China, but I t tee oleum of happy people walking tad biking and en- I ANOTHER example: Two environmental groups have called for creation of a national na-tional coalition to move the nation away from dependence on the automobile. The Na- : tional Wildlife Federation and the Environmental Action Foundation, both based in Washington, have joined together to try to halt highway high-way projects as their initial goal. Futurist-author B. Bruce-Briggs Bruce-Briggs points out in his new book "The War Against the Automobile" (Dutton) that there is an elltest class of car listers. He includes Ralph Nader, federal traffic-safety chief Joan Claybrook (an ex-Nader ex-Nader aide), William Haddon of the Insurance Institute lor Highway Safety, and ottiers. THEY ARE, he suggests, conducting an all-out campaign cam-paign to drive the great mass of Americana from the highways high-ways by making an auto ownership prohibitively expensive ex-pensive for all but the wealthy few. He writes that the anti-auto assault is "merely one cam-paign cam-paign In an upper-class struggle against the standard of living, individual freedom and pride of the great mass of American people." HE de-bunks the claims that the automobile has destroyed de-stroyed our cities; that the automobile has ruined our mass transit systems (like "the refrigerator ruined the icebox or that shoes ruined bare feet"); that Detroit cars have terrible handling and brakes; that the car is unsafe; un-safe; that air pollution is caused by automobiles. "None of those charges has' merit," he wrote. He lays "the automobile has been one of the greatest blessings to mankind." But will they be affordable in the future? CHRYSLER Chairman John Riccardo says we will be paying a total of an extra f 1,000 for our cars-above normal price increases-in the next five-year period because of what he considers government govern-ment over-regulation. So the regulatory war will continue, says the Automotive Information Council, until people ask themselves: "What would I do without my automobile?' |
