In chapter 3, the opening paragraph was very amusing to me. Being a person who really appreciates cars, I could complety understand the authors want for cup holders, but also having the ability to get passed that. (For example, if you want to have cup holders in a new Lamborghini, that's an extra $500, not kidding) However, the truly amusing part came when he writes, "we bought a Ford Explorer and became part of the problem for all those people driving Honda Civics.*" While this in and of itsself, is not all that amusing, as my eyes followed the page downward I read, "*When our Ford Explorer rolled over at 65 mph on an interstate three years later, we bought a Volvo." I laughed to myself, because when I had initially read about the purchasing of a Ford Explorer, I seemed to vaguely recall a couple stories about Explorers being top heavy.
To tie this in with the reading, while the author talked about the negative extranalitys of driving a big car; the author never talked about the initial externality of driving on both the people in the car and the pedestrians. While yes cars can get you from point A to point B, they pose a very dangerous threat upon pedestrians and other drivers alike. However the positives of having cars easily out weigh the negatives in the realm of private and social costs.
No comments:
Post a Comment