Divorce Your Car!: Ending the Love Affair with the Automobile

Alvord's perceptive gloss of the late, great, 20th century's pitiful auto intoxication is a fascinating read and a stunning contradiction of the fatuity that technology is neutral. Her gathering of stories illuminates the existence of a vital planet-wide, counter-car-culture. Witty, substantial and penetrating, Divorce Your Car! is a mighty persuasive job of work. Stephanie Mills, from the Foreword

Our romance with cars, begun with enthusiasm more than 100 years ago, has in fact become a very troubled entanglement. Today's relationship with the automobile inflicts upon us pollution, noise, congestion, sprawl, big expenses, injury, and even death. Yet we continue to live with cars at a growing cost to ourselves and the environment.

What can people do about this souring affair? Divorce your car! Re-meet your feet, board a bike, take a train, pull out of this dysfunctional relationship with the automobile! Divorcing your car can take many forms, from simply using it less to not owning one at all. This practical guide shows how divorcing a car can be fun, healthy, money-saving, and helpful to the planet in the process.

Most other transportation reform books emphasize long-range political and economic policy. Divorce Your Car! speaks less about policy and more about realistic actions that individuals can take now to reduce their car-dependence. It encourages readers to change their own driving behavior without waiting for broader social change, stressing that individual action can drive social change.

Car-dependency is a serious problem, but Divorce Your Car! is leavened with love-affair and self-help analogies in the text as well as cartoon illustrations. From commuterscrazed by congestion and soccer moms sick of chauffeuring, to environmentalists looking for auto alternatives?Divorce Your Car! provides all the reasons not to drive and the many alternative ways we can all get around without our cars.

Table of Contents

Introduction

PART 1: LOVE'S BEEN BLIND: HOW WE ENDED UP MARRIED TO CARS

1: Falling Head Over Wheels: The Advent of Cars

2: Other Suitors Drop by the Wayside: The Decline of Non-Car Transport

3: The Possessive Auto Takes Over the Lands