Car Culture

Jon Stewart fired one of his more brilliant salvos last night, synthesizing 40 years of political posturing around energy independence and America's addiction to foreign oil in just under eight minutes of pointed satire. Using President Obama's Oval Office speech on Tuesday, where he urged a new energy future, Stewart skewered his rhetoric by playing clips from the past seven presidents, dating to Nixon, as they also pledged to get us off oil.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee yesterday advanced an auto safety bill aimed at strengthening U.S. DOT regulators' hands in the aftermath of Toyota's recall debacle. Despite Republican complaints that the legislation would impose too many new costs on the car industry, bipartisan support emerged readily for an amendment focused on pedestrian safety.

The deadline to sign up for TransForm's annual Car-Free Challenge is quickly approaching and the group is hopeful the event will raise awareness about the impact driving has on the climate, particularly in light of the recent oil spill in the Gulf.

Mark Fiore, this year's Pulitzer Prize winner for Editorial Cartooning and the first to win for animated cartoons, recently provided this gem. Joe Commuter tries to explain to an alien visitor how mobility works on Earth and how convenient our cars are with their fuel made from "dinosaur squeezin's." With more than a few jabs at BP and the Gulf Disaster, Fiore does a great job dissecting our phenomenal reliance on petroleum. Though the alien doesn't know much about cars, he does suggest riding a bike to work instead. Higher life form indeed!

A few weeks ago we stumbled across this amazing video of the Scraper Bike phenomenon in Oakland, which we've also documented in this Streetfilm by John Hamilton. In the California is a Place film "Scrapertown," filmmakers Drea Cooper and Zackary Canepari give you another look at Baby Champ and the work he is doing to promote bicycles and community in East Oakland.

Car sharing is a growth industry, as pioneer City CarShare would tell you, and it has beneficial environmental and economic impacts. Studies of car sharing services like Zipcar and City CarShare show that for every car that is shared, up to 15 private vehicles are taken off the road. Owning and operating a personal car is the second-highest family expense behind owning a house, and the highest expense for people who rent.

I've railed on General Motors and Segway in the past for the myriad impracticalities of their tandem Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility (P.U.M.A.) prototype. Now they're at it again, making headlines today by unveiling the first three models in their new Electric Networked Vehicle (EN-V, pronounced "envy") line, including the Jiao, which is Chinese for "Pride."

It always makes my skin crawl when I see a car commercial shot in a city with a sporty sedan hurtling down the street, promising ersatz liberation through reckless driving. But the conversation Joe Eskenazi at SF Weekly had with an Acura PR representative today is hilarious. Or terrifying, you decide: