Cars and Votes: The Anti-Social Bastards in our Midst

It is national election time in Canada, and like the US, most of the major cities will tend to vote left and most of the suburbs will tend to vote right. George Monbiot of the Guardian thinks cars may be responsible. He suggests that ".the extreme libertarianism now beginning to take hold here begins on the road. When you drive, society becomes an obstacle. Pedestrians, bicycles, traffic calming, speed limits, the law: all become a nuisance to be wished away. The more you drive, the more bloody-minded and individualistic you become. The car is slowly turning us, like the Americans and the Australians, into a nation which recognises only the freedom to act, and not the freedom from the consequences of other people’s actions. We drive on the left in Britain, but we are being driven to the right." He traces it back to Margaret Thatcher-she asserted that “a man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure” ::George Monbiot's The Anti-Social Bastards in our Midst