Car and Driver fired me. Editor Csabe Csere sat down in my kitchen and said he had to "let me go.” The magazine could no longer afford my services. No surprise there. Car and Driver had become a pale shadow of its former self. Like Detroit’s carmakers, Csere and his team had refused to recognize reality. The internet had arrived, the game changed, they didn’t. The magazine got thinner and thinner, making my paycheck seem fatter and fatter. I was sorry to see it go (the paycheck). But what the Hell. Here we are. Now what?
Now I’m ready to take a shot at making trouble on the net. I know some of you guys hate my ass because I occasionally shit on your beloved cars or make cracks about the Winston Cup or whatever. So if you don’t like my writing, stop reading. But if you stick around, I’ll tell you exactly what I think. And I’m ready to hear from you, love or hate. And yes, I’ll respond to what you write. What do you think this is, a magazine?
Let’s get one thing straight. I did not work with the original Henry Ford on the first Model T. Yeah, I’m old. But I’m still ready to kick some ass on this kick ass site. What you’re going to read ain’t going to be cute, proper or civil. That’s the way I like it. Always have. Some things never die– even if you want them to.
Like the private automobile. Despite becoming Public Enemy Number One for self-serving, self-appointed, sanctimonious “policy planners,” the automobile remains this country’s life-blood.
To be sure, anti-pollution standards have reduced choking emissions. Seat belts, airbags, crush zones, etc. have reduced death and injury. And hybrids make part of the process someone else’s combustion, somewhere else. But what’s so different today from when Daimler first did his thing? Traffic.
Every day of the year, millions of miles of American roads jam up with workers heading for their stores, factories and cubicles. Meanwhile, countless Mr. or Mrs. Moms clog-up the side streets in their cars, minivans, SUVs and CUVs; ferrying children, groceries, dry cleaning and God knows what from one side of their suburban sprawl to another.
We’re wasting millions upon millions of barrels of increasingly rare and expensive petroleum products doing fuck all.
Yes, I love cars. But like any person who likes to drive fast cars, I hate congestion. I don’t see the point. So what’s the alternative?
Mass transit is a pipe dream. Outside of New York City and Chicago, there are no truly effective rail systems. After a flurry of high speed rail hype, both Washington and private investors have lost interest in commuter rail. Buses only serve a small percentage of the population. Bicycling? You’re kidding, right?
Moreover, as car-friendly suburbs spread like kudzu, there are no simple routes linking the geography of nowhere to center cities– never mind with each other. And we keep building these damn communities; “suburbs” where the disturbing lack of sidewalks mirrors the distressing lack of rail connections.
Despite the understandable anger of the environmentalists, there is no substitute for the millions of private vehicles rolling across our nation. The plain truth is that “the people” aren’t interested. The most they’ll consider is telecommuting– but only a day or two per week. They like their co-workers. They like their cars. Congestion is nothing more than background noise to their everyday life.
Yes, the automobile of today is safer and more efficient, available in every size and shape, from tiny smarts to stupid limousines. But the same basic old world engineering sits under the slick bodywork. It’s like the weather; everyone complains, but no one does anything about it.
So Americans continue to lead the way into a dark future of more emissions, oil use and wasted time. And here comes the third world, as India, China and other Tiger nations of the Far East start producing millions of private cars for a wildly eager population.
I have messed around for much of my adult life with these machines called “automobiles.” Like many car nuts, I too wish we could reduce the traffic and create communities around industries and commercial areas where populations could walk or use public transit.
But quite the opposite has happened– is happening. Industries are moving away from major cities, forcing workers to use private cars for work and their children’s education and economic survival.
And so it goes– until the underlying economics of private transportation changes. And then someone, somehow, will provide a solution. But until that day arrives, the world’s most powerful economies will be saddled with the private automobile, whether they like it or not. As my experience with Car and Driver taught me, nothing ever changes– until it has to.
Brock Yates' column appears on www.ttac.com every Monday.
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I’m honored to be one of the first readers to say, welcome aboard, Mr. Yates. I’ve been an avid reader of Car and Driver and your column for as long as I can remember and it’s good to have you “back.” I wonder: how far will the corn ethanol hullabaloo go on before the realization that it solves nothing catches on?
Welcome aboard, Brock. I look forward to your thoughts. Apparently we agree on a lot so far.
Let me be the first to say Welcome, Mr. Yates. We missed you.
Damn.
Welcome to TTAC!
And non, I didn’t know you before. Got into cars and car mags just as C&D was sinking low, so I never really read it (that was 4 years ago).
As you correctly point out, the car is not the culprit in all those choke-inducing pollution fumes we endure. The people are (duh!).
As far as I’m concerned, we could very do with far less suburbs, and communities built around actual train stations, or at least having more apartments, less lawns, and less strip-malls.
This is not the way America has chosen for itself. It prefers “communities” (if we can call suburbs that, given the disturbing lack of social communication and support, beside kids’ birthday parties where moms get to see what it takes to keep up with the Joneses) based on 5br houses for families of 4.
As for traffic, there always are solutions. I have an agreement with my boss: I’m at work at 7:30 and leave either at 4:30 or after 6pm. 20mn of commuting. Should I leave during rush hour, it would be 45mn. And that way, I burn less of that precious dino juice idling in traffic. But shh, don’t tell the secret, other people may find out.
Double damn.
Welcome Brock. Good stuff.
Watched a two hour show on the History channel last night entitled “Crude”. Scary stuff. Especially if “peak oil” is already behind us. This could get very costly….very quickly. Supply and Demand, aka Mother Econ, doesn’t care whether or not you believe climate change is caused by man or not. No more oil means no more oil. Double scary stuff.
Good to read you again Mr. Yates. Just yesterday I noted how thin the latest issue of C/D is and how Csabe’s full column tribute to Pat Bedard makes your ungracious exit that much more appalling.
Welcome, Welcome. Have read your columns for along time and almost always agreed with you. With regard to traffic, look at old pic on New York from the late 1880s on and you see traffic, with horses and horse shit everywhere. The more things change the more they stay the same (except for all the horse shit).
Mr. Yates,
Welcome to the fold sir. A pleasure to have you here, piss, vinegar et al.
Man, have I missed your stuff Mr. Yates. I’m looking forward to many more articles on here.
C&D has less and less to offer.
Every edition is the same. Here’s the last one, the current one and the next one in a nutshell:
Pollution control and mileage improvements are for pussies, safety measures are nanny-state Big Brotherism, and boy does that new German car have the grunt to go like stink in the twisties.
Every freakin’ month, the same crap. A bunch of crabby old men trying to impress each other with their labored writerliness.
C&D and the other mags have the smell o’ death. TTAC and Autoblog are breaths of fresh air.
Mr. Yates -
Welcome! I look forward to your material – it is sad what’s happened to Car & Driver, but TTAC fills the void for me.
Welcome aboard, Dude. You won’t likely become a millionaire writing here but it’s a very entertaining place.
If it’s traffic you hate, move to a small city in Central or upstate New York. They built good freeways years ago and then the morons in Albany stopped any growth from happening. 20 miles to work? How does 20 minutes sound? Just don’t look for any new buildings.
Welcome Mr Yates! I had the fortune to see you at a couple One Lap of America events in Tulsa 5 or 6 years ago, the diablo on the dirt track was something I’ll never forget.
I’m hoping the One Lap event is still yours, and will be continuing?
Welcome back to The Assassin!
As a 25-year C&D subscriber, thier shabby treatment of one of the best commentators out there was the final straw. When my subscription runs out, they’re done.
Good to have you aboard. Keep the piss and vineger coming.
Even when you piss on Formula One. Which reminds me, what do you make of the latest shenanigans?
The year 2008 just got a lot better…
C&D is still my favorite car rag, winning out over the other Ann Arbor pub years ago.
But I let my C&D sub run out awhile back because the breadth of information and entertainment from the paper rags just isn’t there anymore.
Brock, we love you man!
Welcome Mr. Yates, good to have you here… looking forward to reading more.
Note the photo chosen to illustrate this bit is my daily Nemesis: Interstate 5 here in the Puget Sound region. Sigh.
–chuck goolsbee
arlington, wa, usa
Welcome, Mr. Yates. I look forward to your contributions.
I still have my copy of your 1983 book, The Decline and Fall of the American Automobile Industry.
The scary part is that most of it is just as applicable to what’s left of the Big Three today as it was 25 years ago.
Thank you for all your comments. I am looking forward to writing for TTAC. Keep the comments coming, whether you love or hate me. Either way you'll be hearing more from me on this site.
Hey tulsa_97sr5, the One Lap of America still belongs to me. You can check out our website at http://www.onelapofamerica.com. Come along if you’d like, it’s great fun.
Cannonball!!!!!!
Welcome! Glad to read you again.
Well, Mr. Yates, it appears that you have found a new venue for your narrow-minded and Cro-Magnon diatri………JUST KIDDING! I figured you were getting glazed eyes from all the lovefest comments so far.
Great to see your current thoughts on a regular basis. Exciting development for TTAC. I hope you enjoy the process as much as we will.
Mr. Yates:
I may not have always agreed with your articles, but I did enjoy reading them and they are missed.
I had just renewed my Car & Driver subscription a few months before your “retirement”. Thankfully, my subscription ends in a few more months and it will not be renewed.
I’ll keep checking in to read your comments, even if I do or do not agee.
Glad to see you on-line. Great start and will be a great year. Keep ‘em coming
Is there any way I can get C&D to stop sending me magazines? I haven’t paid for a subscription in quite a while…
Welcome, Mr. Yates.
The author complains that our cities are badly designed and so we really need to drive cars all the time. There is an easy solution to that. Jack up the gas prices to 5-6/gallon and those distant suburbs will suddenly become less attractive to a whole lot people. There will be a strong demand for housing in walkable neighborhoods, like the inner cities, and for good public transportation systems. Cheap gas and cars have more or less destroyed America’s cities. In many sprawled out cities, like San Antonio, TX, you need to drive like 3 miles to buy a damn cup of coffee or a soda six pack. If you want to walk fine, but there won’t be even a sidewalk, and that’s well within city limits! That’s not the way things really should be.
Brock,
Welcome. Loved your column in th Wash Post Mag. I think I protested when they dropped you. I don’t agree much with your politics. I’m a dem, and I wear Birkenstocks. (But so did Ariel Sharon.) But I love internal combustion. I don’t want to own a Prion, I want a Porsche.
As for traffic, the US needs a population policy–stabilize it. Otherwise, any efforts we make on behalf of the environment–including the driving environment–are going to be running in place at best. We’re growing by roughly four New Jerseys a decade; we’re projected to grow 50% in the next 50 years, 2/3s of that due to mass immigration, and unless that’s stopped, the roads are going to be increasingly sclerotic. But it’s not PC to worry about population.
I hope you’ll check out my website, motorlegends.com, where you can see the world’s only menorah made out of Porsche valves, and find out about Richard Nixon’s biggest mistake (had to do with LBJ’s Buick, “Hannibal.”
Best, –David
Brock,
Welcome aboard!
Like many other readers of this site, I’ve been a fan of yours since I was too young to drive. And like many of them, I’ve also been disappointed with the direction the paper car magazines have taken of late.
The only paper ‘enthusiast’ publications I still pay for are a few airplane and fishing ones.
Looking forward to more from you on TTAC.
Meh. Far-flung suburbs are on their way out. I’m willing to bet within a generation or two, walkable cities will be back because of lifestyle and resource issues. The current model of sprawl development isn’t sustainable on many different levels.
Energy prices now aren’t high enough to make a big dent in people’s budgets, but they have nowhere to go but up. Market forces will force mass transportation and the city model back upon people whether we like it or not.
For those who choose to live 50 miles from where they work in order to get a yard and a big house, I feel bad for you guys. I live in a college town now and once I graduate from medical school I will NOT be among the sad saps who wastes 10% of my life trapped in a car.
Oh and thanks for the hybrid flame-bait. It kind of shocks me just just how many people try to play that angle to get some responses.
Brock, I’ve always felt that your editorials were lots of whiney doom-and-gloom and nothing’s changed. But glad to hear your opinion anyways.
Welcome Brock!
I moved out from New Jersey, where its pretty much mandatory you own a car, to Portland, OR, and I haven’t driven my vehicle in about a month, and haven’t filled up my tank since 10/17 (yes, I know the exact date). Part of that is due to my telecommuting job, but another is due to the easily “walkability” of downtown Portland, as well as our wonderful and growing light rail and bus system. Even if you live out in the suburbs, you’re only a $2 rail ride into downtown. Especially wonderful for you if you don’t mind the rain, but its been very mild this winter …
Yes, I just wanted to brag about my lack of driving, and Portland ;). Its amazing how I love to visit this site, and still love cars in general, and yet rarely drive, and generally don’t enjoy it when I do (Mr. Brock is correct, the main reason is traffic).
Mr. Yates,
It is absolutely great to have you here. Looking forward to a lot more.
Hey Mr Yates, it’s fantastic news that you’ll be writing here!
TTAC may not (yet) have the status of C&D, but one thing is certain: your readership is now international.
Pleased to see Mr. Yates writing for this site.
Mr. Farago, not sure if the mild uptick in the use of the f-word and the s-word is really a step forward.
Regards.
Found your book on detroit fascinating 20 years ago and am angered that they did not rectify their short coimings the. I am looking forward to reading your articles here on TTAC.
I don’t know what I can say that many others haven’t already said. As an eleven-year-old in 1986, everything you wrote in C&D was a must-read for me each month. I’m thrilled that you’re here, and I’m sure your commentary will thrive in the sincere, free-thinking environment this website embodies.
Thanks adding to an already fantastic staff, Mr. Yates. I’ll be building a car specifically for One Lap in the next few years, so I’ll see you then :)
I can’t wait for the first back-and-forth in the comments. This site eats up too much of its readers’ time due to the actual, hearty content generated in the comments. Now it’s going to get even worse…for the better.
shabster :
Mr. Farago, not sure if the mild uptick in the use of the f-word and the s-word is really a step forward.
I think Brock is just kicking out the jams a little, after not being able to swear for… a long time.
I’m sure he’ll calm down. Or not.
Uptick in shit and fuck as a step back? Why bother replacing words with other words when the meaning is the same (or, even, insufficient)? Being afraid of the 4 letter words is just as bad as being afraid of 12 letter words, imho.
Brock Yates. THE Brock Yates….wow.
The Truth About Cars has come of age.
Congrats Brock! Glad you are aboard!
-ted
I don’t agree much with your politics. I’m a dem, and I wear Birkenstocks. (But so did Ariel Sharon.) But I love internal combustion.
Wow, now that’s conflicted. You poor tortured soul ;-)
Welcome! Just don’t make fun of BMW e46’s and e30’s. That is all.
Meh. I say we’ll drive ‘em until we die. I’m anxious to see what the so-called government watchdogs do when gas is $15/gallon and John-n-Jane Q. can no longer afford to drive their 43 mile commute to work.
Sorry if it sounds a bit gloomy. Not on my best today.
Welcome.
I think gridlock is here to stay…only because politicians at the municipal and provincial levels have absolutely no vision of the future and are unwilling to do anything even remotely daring. Sprawl has been a hot topic in and around the Greater Toronto Area for about 20 years and it just keeps getting worse, with the bedroom communities getting further and further away. The local paper was recently extolling the virtues of small town east of Toronto as good ‘commuter’ town. I’ve driven there on a clear day, somewhat over the speed limit, and onramp to offramp it was an hour. Add getting too and from the highway, and traffic, and you are easily looking at a two hour journey one way. It’s ridiculous.
Welcome Mr. Yates.
I quite reading C&D in the ’70s, so I can’t really say I recall any specific articles you wrote. I do remember that I didn’t love you, or hate you.
For those who think higher gas prices will drive everyone back densely populated city centers and and possibility of mass transit, you have to consider land prices too. Land is still cheap here in the USA. It’s cheapest out on the outskirts of nowhere, where cows are grazing.
It’s wildely expensive to knock down an old relatively small building in Chicago and put up an new bigger building to house more people. The rents necessary would easily buy a house out in the ‘burbs. Guess what people are going to choose.
Mr. B. Yates,
Back when() I was involved with road rally and autocross I was a avid reader of yours and enjoyed your unbiased opinions on various makes and situations, I am now begining to return my intrest to auto’s and am glad you are on the internet and hope to follow you once again, into joy and tantrums, and yes the need for alternative fuels is a necessary evil of our love of the automobile, and we do have to get back to some of the old solid engineering that proved its self so well, along with melding our new technololgies.
Keep in mind that not all of us live in the cities OR the suburbs. Out here in rural America you’re often forced to drive to the next town over or farther for a decent job. For over 6 years I commuted 40 miles a day to work until I finally landed a job close to home. Now it’s 4.5 miles one way and I can’t wait for warm weather so I can bike it. If my posts end abruptly this spring, figure I’m a red greasy spot on the bumper of some hick’s SUV. :)
# jazbo123
(me) I don’t agree much with your politics. I’m a dem, and I wear Birkenstocks. (But so did Ariel Sharon.) But I love internal combustion.
jazbo123
Wow, now that’s conflicted. You poor tortured soul ;-)
(me again) not really. Part of being human is learning to live with contradictory stuff. I don’t let my environmentalism interfere w/ my enjoyment of internal combustion.
Not surprised that C&D is hitting tough times, it’s turned into ‘Oil Sheik & Millionaires monthly’. I like the occasional review of exotics, but when the whole magazine is like that it’s like a meal made completely of spices.
Motor Trend is far better nowadays, Angus Mackenzie has done an excellent job.
Good to have you here, Mr. Yates!
We still have a lot to learn from you. I look forward to reading your direct, no-BS reviews right here at TTAC.
Agreed: Public transportation rarely works as intended or promoted.
Until and unless smart highways and automated cars can keep us all moving at the same speed, we’re doomed to sit in traffic.
But, where’s the fun in that?
Friday night Red Ball Garage, Cannonball Run just cropped in my mind.
You are correct we are wasting precious resources multi taking in vehicles and going nowhere fast. It would be interesting if the era of “cheap gas” evaporated, how many changes would start occuring in a hurry.
Who has the “political genitals” to raise the price of gas?