Arts and Letters Magazine

"Drive equals Love." What a concept to sell cars! So untrue; yet so similar to the inaccurate messages sent via many automobile ads. For example, the grandson of the man credited with inventing the horseless carriage claims that life does not get any better than a "throaty V-8" and a good car stereo. Another ad uses the first white man to climb Mt. Everest as an apparent spokesman to draw a parallel between driving and adventure. The trend in car commercials for the last few years has been to show cars, and especially SUVs, as vehicles to conquer nature rather than vehicles to transport people. One of the first such commercials showed SUV drivers holding mallets and tearing up a northern California cliff while playing a motorized version of polo. More recently an ad shows two "cowboys" tipping over a rhinoceros and then escaping in an SUV. However cute and creative these ads are, they are sending a false and dangerous message to the consumer.

Over thirty years ago, our society started speaking out against the tobacco companies that glorified cigarette smoking with commercials that portrayed smokers as sexy and adventurous. Cigarette commercials were consequently banned from television. Even today, public health groups lobby for the de-glamorization of tobacco products in Hollywood movies. Are not cars just as much of a health hazard as cigarettes?

According to the US Department of Transportation statistics, over 10 times as many people die in car accidents every year as died in the WTC bombing on Sept 11, 2001. This mention is not to equate car companies with terrorists; it is only to stress the need for consumers to be vigilant in requiring truth in advertising. How can the slogan "drive equals love" be true for the families of those 40,000 plus car crash deaths every year? One out of every 9,000 people living in the US today will be dead as a result of a car accident in the next year. In an average lifetime a typical passenger or driver has about a one in one hundred chance of their life ending as a direct result of a car accident. According to the Disaster Center, the chances of being injured in a car accident are one in one thousand for any given year.

If any other consumer product were this blatantly dangerous, it would be required to carry warning labels. Our society requires we put ratings on movies and music for fear they might indirectly cause tragedy. Yet, we allow car companies to continue to seduce people into thinking the cars they drive define who they are, that people need to drive to enjoy life, and that cars mean freedom. Cars are tools. Transportation tools. When they are being "pushed" as euphoric thrill machines, it encourages dependence on motor vehicles. Society's addiction to automobiles threatens the health of humans and the environment every bit as much as cigarettes or illegal drugs. Car abuse is a real addiction. The advertisements vulgarly glorify the addiction. The consumer buys into it all. Commercials for such a dangerous product should at least provide one of those fast-talking disclaimers such as drug companies are required to have when they advertise their products.

Finally, the absurdity of the "car conquers nature" genre of commercials becomes ironic when considering the actual impact cars have on the environment. Putting aside liberalist arguments that the need for car fuel may in turn fuel wars; it is undeniable that oil is a threat to a healthy environment both in the pre-use transportation stage and the post-use emissions stage. Periodically, oil tanker accidents ruin thousands of miles of coastline while trying to satisfy our thirst for gasoline. Petroleum by-products that make it into our waterways through road run off and sewage waste do similar damage to coastlines and estuaries. Perhaps, though, the most alarming environmental impact comes from the nearly invisible atmospheric pollutants that automobiles produce. The average car driver burns about 500 gallons of gas every year and the average SUV driver about 700 gallons. That translates into six and a half tons of pollutants per car per year; and nine tons per SUV per year. Those pollutants are in the air we breath and the rain that waters our crops.

There is no denying the automobile has its benefits. However, like so many temptations in people's lives, overuse and abuse of cars is behavior that should be discouraged, rather than encouraged. Car companies send a message with their advertisements that cars are about nature, freedom and power. A car is a tool; so why is it advertised as a luxury or an instrument of pleasure? For years the individual consumer has been leary of the stereotypical dubious car salesman. Perhaps, now it it is time for society to start being leary of the dubious tactics car companies are using to sell a false image, a false lifestyle, and a false future to the unsuspecting consumer.

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