Vanishing Automobile update #65

The Greatest Invention: How Automobiles Made America Great

September 29, 2006

What was the greatest invention of the last two hundred years? Railroads? Electricity? Telephones and telegraphy? Computers? The Internet?

A recent report (940-kb) published by the American Dream Coalition argues that the invention that did the most to improve the quality of life of the average American was the mass-produced automobile. The automobile, along with its cousins the truck and the tractor, were largely and in some cases entirely responsible for:

• Increasing personal incomes by seven times;
• Increasing personal mobility by six to eight times;
• Increasing homeownership rates by more than 40 percent;
• Increasing the variety of consumer goods by up to 100 times;
• Enabling the civil rights and women's liberation movements;
• Making outdoor sports accessible to the average American;
• Reforesting 80 million acres of deforested horse pasture lands;
• Converting 40 million acres of other pastures to valuable crop lands;
• Providing rapid access to fire and other emergency services;
• Offering swift escape from natural disasters.

As a bicyclist and railfan, it is with some chagrin that I write in praise of the automobile. Yet if railroads increased per capita incomes, the auto increased them even more. If railroads offered mobility to the wealthy and middle classes, the auto offered far more mobility to almost everyone regardless of class or status.

The report recommends that government agencies should stop trying to discourage driving and instead merely insure that auto drivers and other transport users pay the full costs of their transport choices.