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November 29, 2002
America: A Nation on Wheels
A first time visitor to the US, particularly one from South Asia, is immediately struck by the panorama of a vast and intricate array of highways. They stretch from coast to coast, north to south, multi-tiered, clover-leafed, woven with graceful profusion between cities and towns, fed by carefully designed arteries into 12-lane superhighways that in turn feed more traffic into other elaborate systems leading to small towns and suburbs all across the length and breadth of the country. The vast and intricate road system strikes like a dazzling web of ribboned cement and asphalt, taking millions of people safely and swiftly to their dreams.
This constant, high-speed movement, this intense beehive activity is what America is all about. It is a nation comprising immigrants who had traveled long-distances to reach an uncharted land with little in their baggage except hope, confidence and the will to thrive on challenges. Travel in search of a better life is thus in their blood. The gold rush of 1849 was triggered more by a spirit of adventure than that of greed.
It is a peripatetic nation, the most mobile society in history. It is a nation on wheels. The twentieth century began with some 8,000 cars and ended with almost 100 million. American economy is built on mobility. Your neighbor on the right might have moved to your vicinity from New York, while the one on the left might be from Seattle. You might not even know the others, for you never get to see them.
Houses - called ‘homes’ euphemistically - were never before as comfortable but families so seldom in them. On an average, a person spends two hours each day on roads, a month in a year or five years in a lifetime. No wonder, car figures next only to a home in the scale of values of an ordinary American.
Restlessness and an on-the-move trait constitute a significant facet of American character. It reflects a belief that things might be better somewhere else, and a desire for improvement or for just plain change. American heroes and legendary figures, Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett, for instance, were restless and adventurous. Symbolizing the American pioneer spirit, they evinced an indifference towards settling down. Boone originally blazed an 826-mile route through the mountains in 1775.
The modern day American adventurer may sport a mobile home and cherish the freedom it affords him to move to any place he fancies as attractive.
You find the extensive highway system conditioning, some times and in certain respects, the people’s conduct more than the class-room or the Sunday sermons. It can even turn a person into a poet, as it did to Irfan Murtaza, a fine, thought-provoking poet of California, whose job entails extensive and frequent travels by car. He told me that he was a “freeway poet” as he had time for poetic musings only when he was driving on a freeway. It must be the freeway that has imparted a racy style to his poetry.
In the US, a major highway - a multilane divided roadway with limited access to entrance and exit - is called a Freeway if it has no toll, a Tollway or Turnpike if it has toll. American road system was built in the 18th and 19th century on the old Indian trails. Popular public vehicle was the stagecoach. Then came in 1860 the first transcontinental railway reducing the significance of the trails. But, with the discovery of the internal combustion engine and the advent of automobile, roads acquired a renewed importance.
The Great Depression of 1930s gave much impetus to the construction of highways as an economic measure. The Pennsylvania Turnpike was inaugurated in 1940.
Automobile was the most significant factor in the birth of the road system that exists today in the US. The car, in point of fact, became a symbol of the American spirit of independence, providing greater mobility and freedom. It set underway a new age of trade, commerce, enterprise and industry. Burgeoning activities placed on the country’s roadmap new routes, tunnels, bridges, gas stations, convenience stores, picnic areas and parking lots for motor homes. It caused the birth of motels too.
Motor transport has its seamy side also. For instance, in 1930 Los Angeles boasted the world’s largest interurban electric transport system connecting the sprawling metropolis with 50 communities in a 75-mile radius. General Motors and Standard Oil maneuvered to replace, within 10 years, the electric system with petrol-consuming motorcars and buses. Over the years, the burgeoning number of cars in that metropolis caused the clogging of freeways and choking the city with noxious fumes. It came to be known as ‘the smog capital of the world’. Smog tests and strict restrictions on the level of gas emissions were introduced to cope with the situation. Roads have been constantly widened to reduce clogging and traffic jams. Still it takes, in many cities, more time to reach home from work than it takes to travel by air from San Francisco to Los Angeles.
The long and straight stretches cause boredom, road-psychosis and driver fatigue. The divided highway has largely taken care of this. Figures show a sharp decline in collisions. Many commuters now consider it safer to travel by freeways than by surface roads.
Cars that run on both electricity and gas have already appeared at dealerships. Air pollution will go down considerably once American innovation and technology reduce the cost to bring it within the purchasing power of an average citizen.
The Kuwait war has placed the Saudis under so much of debt that it is in their own interest now that the US continues to buy their oil. The world supply will substantially increase once the Azerbaijan and Kazakhistan oil wells go into full production and start serving international demand via the Persian Gulf or Arabian Sea through Iran or Afghanistan. The fear of oil being used as a weapon in the Middle East problem is thus not well-founded at the moment.
The nation on the wheels will thus continue to enjoy its dominating position as the sole super power. But, the administration has to be wary of the moves designed to lead it into the Clash of Civilizations. That might turn out to be disastrous for the entire world community. For, the move emanates from an intense sense of insecurity and communal hatred of a small sector of society: it hardly holds water in an objective analysis of the situation. Right now the tail is wagging the dog.
America is today like a super rich, shapely blonde in a convertible Rolls with a sticker on its bumper reading “I am more fun with my top off”.
The other day I saw a glittering Mercedes car on whose side was written: “This status symbol for sale. Owner unfortunately changing status.” It does not take long in America for the status to change.
Looking through the glass, Alice exclaimed: It is a strange country, you have to keep running to be able to remain at your place. The tempo of life in America -the nation on wheels- bears this out. To retain its position as the sole super power, it has no option but to stick strictly to its larger national interest, remain hyper-active and maintain its fast tempo of life.
Arifhussaini@hotmail.com
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