AntiCaR by Reclaim the Streets Network Dear Motorist, Large pieces of metal hurling around at high speed are danger to life & limb. How does society tolerate the annual slaughter of 5000 people a year in Britain, & a million globally? Why do hit and run drivers not get the publicity of serial killers. Their victims are just as dead. Politicians will dismiss a rise in crime as 'mostly traffic offenses', whilst becoming apoplectic about car theft and joy riding. A single death in a rail crash is headline news, meriting a public enquiry and resignation of ministers, whilst the most horrific of motorway pile-ups hardly worth a mention in the press. In India the cow is a sacred animal to which motorists must give way. Nowhere is the human similarly sacred. The fact that we can not cross the road if you are coming is taken for granted. Imagine if you had to stop for us would you still spend 10,000 on a car. 5000 slaughtered each year in Britain each year. How would a society of motorists tolerate anything else? Cars are considered a form of liberty but the only form of liberty they bring is the liberty to kill and maim others. You have liberty to go anywhere, as long as there is a multi-storey at the end. You have been sold a mere representation of freedom. Is it the risk of driving that excites you? Cars are sold on their ability to reach dangerous erotic speeds. But you end up edging your way through a traffic jam at less than walking pace. You have been sold danger without excitement. We weep not for you nor the time you have spent working to pay for your car and its petrol. We weep for ourselves because drunk or sober you are mutilating and killing us. Transformation of city Cars take up so much space, parked and moving. They also need workshops to mend them, petrol stations, insurance offices & of course hospitals. 23% of London, 44% of Los Angeles is devoted to the car. The more people have cars, or rather the more money is spent by motorists, the more places become out of reach to people who do not have cars; witness the exodus of shops from high streets to ring roads. Ironically the machine that is sold on its ability to bestow freedom of movement and to cover distances actually creates as much distance as it traverses. This moving of facilities away impoverishes your life, as you spend longer behind the wheel. Our movements are channeled along ever restricted paths, we have more and more roads to cross and they are ever more busy, smelly, unpleasant and dangerous. The final irony is that you can gain no satisfaction from all the space that is being generously turned over to your use. You do not actually appreciate the space that you pass through even though you prevent us from using it; all you do is try to pass through as quickly as possible. The more of it there is, the more obstacles there are to upset you: other cars. You must hate cars even more than we do. Rape of the planet 1 Cars consume vast amounts of raw materials. Mining ores carves great open cast scars in the landscape. 2 The petrol cars need pollutes at its point of production and consumption and every point in between: the super tanker, the filling station and the engine. Cars use a third of world's oil. In OECD countries 40% in 1973, 60% in 1989. Two thirds of cars are in G7 countries. 3 Cars create so much waste. Thousands of used tyres are dumped at sea, the rest accumulate in massive dumps. Millions of use batteries leak in toxic waste dumps. 4 Cars are biggest cause of atmospheric pollution and global warming. Exhaust fumes make us ill from the nitrous oxides, the carbon monoxide and the hydrocarbons. 5 Lead in exhaust fumes brain damages children. But unleaded petrol is higher in cancer causing agents and requires more crude oil to be made. 6 Millions of animals are squashed each year by cars. 7 New roads carve up the countryside. We will stop you Car ownership is not as universal as it pretends. In UK 35% of households have no regular use of a car, 48% in 1970. There is very little overlap between those who hate cars and those who control media. We have no big lobby groups. But we are organising and taking action. Organizations such as the Pedestrian Freedom Front & Society for Cutting Up Motorists have formed. The thing that is so infuriating about cars is what make them so vulnerable: they are everywhere. Many car haters are turning their hatred into playful actions. Cyclists blocked the M42 in 1991 by cycling between the cars when jammed up and refusing to move. In Brighton cars were misdirected to the outskirts by protesters in shiny jerkins. Much of this action has grown out of more people becoming aware of links between profligate overcomsumption and environmental degradation. Resistance does not only take form of road blockages. Your car is your alienation. Is communication possible? Must we smash your windscreen; break through to you and tell you that there is a world out here? We want to reach out to you and gently lift you out of the car. Before we pour petrol on the seat and set it alight. By petrol it was brought to life and so by petrol it shall die. So don't say you have not been warned. Footnote: People often confuse three separate environmental problems: 1) the greenhouse effect, which is caused mainly by CO2, which is emitted by cars. CFCs also contribute. 2) ozone depletion in upper atmosphere, which is caused by CFCs. 3) low level ozone smog, which is generated by sunlight acting on car fumes. Reproduce this text at will. It was ripped off from a PFF pamphlet (PO Box 406, Stoke On Trent, ST1 4RN) by the Broad Leafed Collective (Don't look for us, we will find you). For more anti-car info contact Reclaim the Streets Network. 071 737 0100.