I appreciate the perspective, zebra2. And truth be told, I totally relate about the joy of driving in ideal (or simply not horrible) conditions. I like g forces, going fast, and combining those sensations with good music, and the sights, sounds, smells, etc., of the world I'm passing through. Celebrating that set of experiences is a totally worthy endeavor. Having a fun car really helps, as does living somewhere gridlock doesn't make a mockery of one's fine engine. (If we could watch the commercials of professional drivers on private tracks in the Alps or wherever while sitting in traffic, then the closed loop of self-parody would truly be complete).

I just wish it weren't increasingly (though surely not in all places) the only form of personal transit deemed acceptable, respectable, and therefore, protected and effectively sponsored by our society. We have zero public transit where I live, too, so the automobile pretty much has a monopoly on getting from point A to point B. Even walking (which I love, but many seem to sneer or gawk at as if it were a disgustingly plebeian undertaking) can't get me past the edge of town safely.

We might have developed our infrastructure to permit and encourage multiple forms of transportation -- the really fun, fast, mechanized, motorized ones, and the slower, user-powered, and inexpensive ones (travelling styles that actually improve health more than they threaten it). For the most part, we didn't, though. Maybe Fordism really is the better name for our type of economy, as Gramsci apparently put it. Either way, the route back to diverse, egalitarian transit seems now about as laborious as it is unpopular.