Happy Motoring

As I stand on the bike, overlooking Highway 99 on the 41st Ave overpass, I don't look down on a pack of happy people -- these are people whose expressions and actions certainly don't exude happyness (sic). I suppose my expression doesn't either, with an elevated heart rate and all...

What happened to us? Forty five years ago, Esso had the "Happy Motoring" slogan -- the Oil Drop Man was a smiling caricature of us Americans, all of whom enjoyed happy motoring, as well as the Esso station attendants with their happy motoring jingle. Where did we go so wrong?

Where? Perhaps the day we decided that it was an acceptable allocation of our national resources to subsidize the daily commute from unit five in tract twelve of Pheasant Hollow Estates in Tracy to a job in unit B of the Loon Landing office park in Milpitas. As everyone in Tracy now grinds out their own commutes by solo occupant driving, so goes their collective happiness, jockeying with others for their own piece of the public asphalt, with expanding waistlines and shortened tempers.

The best days of happy motoring are evidently behind us

even though we now have technology to help keep us happily motoring: InCarNav systems, cellularized telephones, drive-thru food purchasing, satellite radio, LED powered roadside advertisements, in-dash DVD players, 4wheel-on-the-fly, heated seats, dual-zone climate control... With all these enhancements, how come our drivers aren't beaming with joy?