Americans’ love affair with the car may be headed for divorce court. The Pew Research Center did a study recently that says the number of people who still enjoy going for a drive has dropped from eight out of ten back in 1990 to just under seven out of ten today. Inescapable traffic — and over-the-top enforcement of “technical foul” traffic laws — are probably among the reasons why.
Traffic kills the joy of driving. What good is a 400 horsepower car when it’s difficult if not altogether impossible impossible to drive it much faster than 80 MPH?
Traffic enforcement, meanwhile, has made it feloniously illegal to drive it faster than about 80 MPH — even if it’s physically possible to do so. The repercussions are so extreme — “reckless driving” cite, the threat of jail time, loss of license, thousands of dollars in fines and legal bills — that most people quite understandably are hesitant to explore the capabilities of their vehicles. And those who are willing to take the risk inevitably pay the price — and are culled from the herd.
Result: People drive slow in cars built to go very fast — a form of torture unique to our time.
Read Article