Between the two of them, Yvonne Abraham and her subject give us a stunning anthropological insight (“Putting on the brakes,” Metro, May 17). She brings us Nancy Lawton, 77, who has given up her driver’s license — a “blow,” Abraham writes, “as monumental as losing her husband 25 years ago.” She has lost her “independence,” her “lifetime of liberty behind the wheel.” Lawton herself laments, “You can’t be spontaneous. You lose control.”
Although Lawton is healthy and lives near public transportation, Abraham is not tempted to explore the world that could be opening up to her, or the health benefits of a lot more walking. Instead, her tragic tone trumpets poor Lawton’s loss of selfhood, and writes that “her car has been bound up with who she is.”
Comments
Public transport won't help her "drop in to see her grandchildren on a whim, or leave parties when she likes." Anti-car people never appreciate the freedom and spontaneity offered by the automobile, nor the private space it offers to "take a drive, listening to Steely Dan or Bob Seger, doing her own thing." Perhaps, in the eyes of this 77 year old, being crowded in a grimy subway car surrounded by 20-somethings texting and chatting isn't the same thing.
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Well Kitty, it you have your way will be back to horse and buggy, it's for the climate after all. How is the party taking us backward? though so....