Carjacked – The Culture of the Automobile

Carjacked, The Culture of the Automobile and Its Effects On Our Lives, explores the love, lust, and reality of America’s car culture. The authors, Catherine Lutz and Anne Lutz Fernandez, have a refreshing and realistic take on America’s car obsession and its broad implications. From a teenager’s first car to an adult’s quest for the best car on the road, Carjacked has stories from across the country about the lengths people go to to get that coveted automobile.  The latter half of the book extensively (but impressively briskly) explores the physiological, economical, and sociological effects of American car culture.

The book reads like a sobering look in the mirror of our car obsessed society, and includes a number of eye-opening facts and statistics. That driving costs an average of 66 cents a mile, a parking garage stall costs around $19,500 to build, commuting represents only 16% of total trips by car, the busiest hour on the nation’s roadways is one in the afternoon on Saturday, transit users on average weigh five pounds less, dying driving is three times as likely as dying as a result of a homicide, driving at 65 mph instead of 75 mph results in 12% less gas use, and that the average spends more than 18.5 hours a week in a car.

Carjacked will be easy to read for just about anyone as it doesn’t delve deep into land-use planning, tax codes, or foreign policy, yet still maintains a detailed and fact-based description of the extent of America’s car culture.  Even more refreshing is that the book is grounded in reality. Catherine and Anne don’t set outlandish goals for a world free of cars, instead aiming for reducing car use and “… remaking our transit system so that we can allow more people to live car free.”

If you’re going to a ride in a car this year, you should read Carjacked.