Daily Archives: December 31, 2020

Cars: The Greatest Freedom Tool Ever Invented

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When you think about human freedom, you usually think about ancient Greek philosophy, the invention of democracy, and libertarianism. But being free is actually a lot more practical than many people in their ivory towers imagine. 

Cars, for instance, are arguably the greatest tool for freedom ever invented. For the first time in history, people can hop into a vehicle and travel wherever they want on the public roads, without having to pay a fortune for the privilege. Practically everyone in work can afford these objects. 

How We View Our Cars

It wasn’t always this way, of course. The 1960s, for instance, was an era before universal car ownership. The vast majority of working people couldn’t afford to run a private motor vehicle, so they had to rely on walking, trains, or bicycles instead. 

When cars began coming down in price to the point where the average person could afford them, they were hailed as freedom-giving objects. All of a sudden, a family living in the middle of a big city could pack their bags and go to the beach whenever they liked, without having to hop on the train first. Plus, they could travel back whenever they liked, instead of having to keep an eye on the clock. 

Young people experienced a similar level of freedom for the first time too. They were able to go out late, drive where they liked, and meet up with their friends, so long as they had access to a car. It was seen as the greatest tool for freedom in the history of mankind, giving anyone who owned one unprecedented level of independence. 

The view of cars, however, began to change. And by the turn of the millennium, very few people saw them as a tool for freedom. In fact, most began viewing them as objects that polluted and damaged the natural world – a far cry from fifty years beforehand. 

The rise of the car wreck lawyer also began to change things. For the first time, we saw that cars were also extremely dangerous and that safety was a real concern on the roads. 

Because of these major narratives, we’ve forgotten about the freedom that cars offer us. But it’s still there, and we should celebrate it. 

Reclaiming The Car Freedom Narrative

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Major social forces are changing the way that we view our motor vehicles. The global elite actually wants to put an end to private vehicle consumption because of the impact that they believe it is having on the climate. 

But with the advent of electric motor vehicles, that could all be about to change. In the future, the problem won’t be the cars themselves at all – it’ll be the coal and gas power plants providing them with energy. 

Cars will once again become a kind of guilt-free pleasure that anyone can enjoy. And it’s going to happen sooner than many think. Already EVs are economically compelling. And by the time we get to the middle of the next decade, the price of making them will have fallen below regular ICE vehicles, ushering in a new era.

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How The Way You Drive Changes As You Get Older

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Driving is possibly the closest thing that we have to a rite of passage in the west. Once somebody can full command of a dangerous two-ton motor vehicle, they suddenly enter a world of genuine life and death responsibility. It’s a critical part of the “adulting” process for many people. 

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Remember, society tends to coddle children as they grow up. We don’t accept any form of danger. And that means that young people never really get a taste of what it means to have genuine responsibility. Many of the attempts to build “rounded” people involve an element of fakery or make-believe. 

Driving, however, is just about as real as it gets in the modern world. Health and safety haven’t yet conquered the private motor vehicle, which means that many young people still have the opportunity to take the power of life itself into their hands. 


Of course, very few people describe what’s going on in these terms. We don’t have a narrative about what it means to become a driver. It’s just something people do. But the fundamentals are all there. Driving is a kind of gateway to adulthood – and one of the only ones we have left. 

You would think, therefore, that young drivers would be the most cautious. After all, they don’t have experience on the road. And they’re only just learning to get behind the wheel. Unfortunately, that’s not usually how it works out in practice. Instead, young drivers are much more likely to take risks than any other age group. 

It’s all to do with the maturing brain. Experts think that it takes until at least age 25 for people to develop the ability to adequately judge risk. So because so many people start driving in their late teens, they don’t have the psychological machinery in place to know what styles of driving are dangerous and which aren’t. It’s just not in their makeup. 

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Getting into a crash, however, can have all sorts of long-term financial ramifications. Financial recovery after an accident, for instance, often takes a long time and help from professional legal experts. Rehabilitation from injuries is also sometimes a multi-year project. 

As people get older, therefore, they begin to see the realities of these risks. It’s not just a matter of protecting themselves, but also their families and other people on the road. Getting into a crash can have all sorts of long-term adverse effects, both materially, and psychologically. 

Older drivers, therefore, tend to leave behind their “boy racer” days. Their primary concern becomes comfort instead of thrill-seeking. And that’s reflected in the way that they drive. 

They also naturally create a kind of unconscious intelligence that helps them become better drivers. Over the years, they learn about the kinds of situations that are dangerous and take precautionary action to prevent an accident. The interesting thing is that many people do this automatically, without even realizing it, which is why your chances of being in an accident plummet in your forties and fifties before rising again in old age.

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