CNN: Americans Are Giving Up Their Cars

No, not that! Anything but that! Oh, hang on; if you’re an environmentalist, that’s a good thing, right? Less carbon in the atmos. Less congestion. (Bonus! The remaining drivers can zip about faster!) But the majority party isn’t against cars per se, are they? They just want smaller, cleaner cars. And OK, yes, lots of busses and trains and people riding them (presumably), which would, ideally, mean less cars. But we can’t really have less cars ’cause then Detroit would go out of business and working class people would get the shaft (again). I know! Maybe we could have less smaller, cleaner cars—as long as all of them were built in Detroit. By union workers. But what about the people who work for the transplants? Um . . .

We could ditch secret ballots for union elections to help the workers at those other companies (that seem to know how to build the kind of comfortable, reliable, affordable vehicles Americans want) not get shafted. Of course, even then we’d have to do something to stop people from buying too many cars.

Oh! Oh! We could raise the price of gas! And insurance! And inspections! And registry fees! And I dunno, slap on a new carbon tax or something.

If this doesn’t strike you as journalism, well, I was inspired by my very first employer, CNN, whose iReport is friggin’ genius. Instead of [real] journalists going to all the bother to find people who support their non-scientific (not to say propagandistic) thesis, they find you! Et voila!

Everyone’s trying to cut their budget this year, from the White House to big corporations to ordinary citizens. For many Americans, this means making big changes and going without things to which they’ve become accustomed. For some, the economic downturn means saying goodbye to that icon of American prosperity: their car.

The WHITE HOUSE? The White House is cutting their budget? What didn’t I understand about the $787B stimulus package? Never mind, we’re a car site. We’re a car site. Must remember: we’re a car site.

So, what experts has CNN lined-up for their conclusion that Americans are abandoning their cars? None! Didn’t I already tell you that? But we do get two iWitnesses.

“Stores are only a mile away. I have legs. I can walk; I can ride my bike,” said [college student Kyle] Aevermann. iReport.com: ‘Bye bye car’

Another person doing a lot of walking is Hilary Ohm. She’s cut her driving down as much as possible since losing her job in October. She no longer drives to work, of course, and since she lives in the small town of Colville, Washington, she’s able to walk to go shopping and meet up with friends.

“I have found that walking into town every day is a great way to get exercise, meet people and get to know my community better,” said Ohm, who carries a backpack to town with her so that she can do the grocery shopping.

I suppose women with kids can carry a sprog in one of those belly thingies and backpack on their back for groceries (or the other way around). And if it’s cold, they can wear a hat.

Commuting? We can all do that by mass transportation. Or car sharing. Or something. And all those stores that depend on vehicular traffic can put out a flipping sidewalk, already. Don’t forget: cars are a luxury. Read the headline: “Thrift-conscious say goodbye to cars, cell phones, other luxuries.” See? It’s not about poverty, it’s about thrift.

As for reporting, we can just email it in. Obviously.