LIFE BEYOND THE WINDSCREEN
or FREEDOM TO STAY


AWAY WITH ALL CARS!

by Mr Social Control/Pedestrian Freedom Front (PFF).

A5 pamphlet, illustrated, approx 28 pages, £1 & 10p P+P from
Playtime Forever Press, BM Jed, London WC1N 3XX.

At last - a coherent, well produced, full frontal assault on the
car in the shape of this manifesto from the PFF. It covers not
just the absurdity of the situation in this "great economy of
ours" (M. Thatcher), but the car as a weapon; as a destroyer of
both the ecology of town, countryside, planet and civilised
society; and the boredom and impotence which, in the guise of
freedom and power the car actually produces in its driver. 

  As a mode of transport the car requires roads, garages, petrol
stations, bridges, car parks, factories, insurance offices,
scrapyards - and hospitals. Car-occupied land takes up 23% of
London, 29% of Tokyo and 44% of Los Angeles. This pamphlet is
full of sharp insights on the many ironies of the car, laced
with statistics and told with humour, if you like yours black.
Lambasting motorists in his area who persuaded the local council
to cut down crab apple trees because they didn't like wind falls
on their car bonnets, the author fumes: "If is amazing that you
all spend so much time polishing and cleaning machines that make
everything else in sight a filthy stinking mess. Crab apple
trees are not a nuisance. Cars are a nuisance. Where do you
think oxygen comes from anyway? Out of your fucking exhaust
pipe?"

  But the PFF firmly rejects the idea that the car is just an
environmental issue which can be moderated by reforms like
traffic calming, pelican crossings or pedestrian precincts, and
dismisses the distinction others make between 'green' and
'dirty' cars, or 'good' and 'bad' drivers. Indeed they use the
opportunity to attack the capitalist system which, in both
senses, drives and is driven by the car industry. 

  So why pick on the car? Because, apart from its symbolism, its
sheer physical presence overwhelmingly dominates life in the
'developed' world, and the developing world can't wait to get
its hands on more of them:

"Its ceaseless traffic in traffic is what stops us enjoying
life. And may be even what stops us communicating with you.
That's why we want to smash the windscreen; we want to break
through to you and tell you that there's a world out there. We
want to reach out to you and prise your hands from the sweaty
steering wheel and gently lift you out of the car - before we
pour petrol on the seat and set alight to the ugly thing. By
petrol it was brought to life and by petrol shall it die. So
don't say you've not been warned."

The necessity of driving, for many people, is conceded - but
does the author relent in his attack on them? No chance:

"We are not bursting with alternative methods of transport for
you to go to all your ridiculous shopping centres, office blocks
and so on...We do not believe in improving public transport. We
loath public transport. We hate paying for it, waiting for it,
looking out of its windows at dirty car-choked city streets.

I know the feeling. And if he does overstate his case somewhat -
so what? We all know that it is often the only way to get people
to sit up and listen.

Instead, the author advocates the supercession of transport,
which would free vast tracts of public land - roads, car parks,
roundabouts, etc - for use by everyone. 

"The broad highways that slice our cities into fragments would
become genuine thoroughfares, linking communities rather than
dispersing them. There would be an end to roads and we would
have streets to walk down."

Yet when he continues: "Perhaps some would have canals cut along
their centres with electric trams running along the bank..." one
begins to suspect that his anti-public transport stance is more
than a little tongue-in-cheek. The re-populated streets would
cause a big drop in crime, and the reduction of geographical
distances between activities might produce a reduction in their
scale and a rediscovery of daily face-to-face contact. What one
might call, to paraphrase Colin Ward, 'Freedom to Stay'.

Addressing the motorist throughout, the PFF calls for a return
to life beyond the windscreen and says:

"The final irony is that you can gain no satisfaction from all
the space that is being so generously turned over to your use.
You do not actually use the space you pass through even though
you prevent us from using it, all you do is try to mitigate it
by trying to pass through it as quickly as possible. As far as
you are concerned you are never really in it at all, you just
watch it go by, a boring TV programme projected onto your
windscreen. And the more space there is for you to wish you did
not have to drive through, the more unhappy you are because the
more obstacles there are to your progress: other cars. You must
hate cars, really hate them, more than we, as pedestrians can
ever imagine."

So who are the PFF? It has no followers, only leaders. All
people who hate cars are fully paid up members, who merely
differ in their degree of activism. Calling for a campaign of
anger against the car, this tract, like all good manifestos, is
a heady mixture of philosophy, solid facts and good old
fashioned rant. And, as a spur to action, it points out that
targets are not hard to find. 

"The very thing that makes them so infuriating is also what
makes them so vulnerable: they're absolutely everywhere."

If you hate cars and all that they stand for - and even if you
only mildly dislike them - you'll love this pamphlet. But more
importantly, get one for your car-driving friends.  

           
KM

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Reprinted from FREEDOM 25/7/92, fortnightly @narchist paper 50p
from Freedom Press, 84b Whitchapel High St, London, E1 7QX.
Visit their shop!