WHAT WE WON’T MISS
Maui’s Car Culture
FROM THE DOCK
New cars wait distribution to dealer and rental lots.
There are over 120,000 automobiles on Maui. In the United States there are 1.9 cars for every registered driver.
After which, they spend a few years in the service of their owners. Seems like we spent much of our time in the car either driving to work to make money or driving to the store to spend it.
TO THE JUNKYARDS
A few years after they arrive on island, they reach the end of their useful life and end up in piles like this.
As you can imagine, getting rid of cars on an island isn’t easy. They must be crushed and transported by ship to be processed on the mainland. There are many ways to slow down this process. The equipment may break, the permit may run out, the barge may sink and the business may run out of operating funds.
What more can I say? It all seems like a terrible waste – and for what? Just so we can all get spun up in moving too fast through our lives. Side effects of the car culture include, obesity, prescription drug use, nearly 45,000 fatalities a year in the US, bad air, wasted oil and so on.