This cartoon is by me and Becky Hawkins.
Becky writes:
As a long-time car-free bicycle commuter, I’m drawn toward Barry’s traffic-related scripts. I like lecturing friends and acquaintances about the dangers of oversized vehicles and car-centric road design, but drawing a cartoon about it is more lucrative and (I hope) more far-reaching. Given how many cartoonists can’t afford a car and/or don’t drive, I’m surprised there aren’t more cartoons about the conflicts between cars and the people outside of them.
Uncle Sam was fun to draw. Everyone knows what he looks like, but when’s the last time you really looked at a vintage Uncle Sam poster? His hair and beard are so weird! His jacket has fun lapels and a little puff at the shoulders! Stars and stripes everywhere! He’s iconic!
I wanted to add some minimal chicken fat, like a bust on the bookshelf that changed from panel to panel. A founding father seemed like a natural place to start. A bust of Lin-Manuel Miranda as Alexander Hamilton would be a funny spin on that, but would people get it? I wrote their initials on the busts to give readers a hint. Then I guess my brain went “Two-letter initials… Like E.T.?”
My drawing-soundtrack for this cartoon was the audiobook of Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield. I tend to hear about a book, place a library hold, and then read it weeks later without remembering why it was recommended, so I was unprepared for six hours of love, loss, and some nautical body horror. But I fully recommend Our Wives Under the Sea if you’re in the mood for that!
Barry writes:
One thing not many people realize is that, after years of achieving substantial reductions in pedestrian deaths, we lost all those gains (and a lot of pedestrian lives) beginning around 2010.
In an interview, Angie Schmitt, an expert on sustainable transportation, said:
Cars are getting bigger. Cars are more powerful. They’re more likely to kill pedestrians. Not only are more pedestrians getting struck by cars, but when they do get struck it’s more likely to be fatal. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) did some research on this that’s really important. Some of the other people who have investigated this like the Detroit Free Press have sort of arrived at the same opinion. They basically found that when you look at what’s happening now versus years ago when pedestrian deaths were lower: more pedestrians are getting struck, but collisions are 29% more deadly.
As for the collisions that are happening, it could be one of two things: either they’re at higher speeds or they’re happening with heavier vehicles. There’s really strong data that the federal government tracks–one of the things they track really well is when there’s fatalities what type of vehicle it was. So we can look at the data really clearly and make the connection to SUVs.
I’m definitely not going after individual SUV owners with this cartoon. Like so many issues, car safety isn’t really about the choices made by us as individuals; it’s about the menu of choices made available to us by society. We should be able to trust the government to make sure that the cars on the market are as safe as possible, both for people in the cars and for pedestrians and bike riders.
People want SUVs so they can feel safer when driving. But ironically, one of the main things we want to feel safe from is… other SUVs. SUVs and other huge vehicles are creating the dangers we want them to protect us from.
If banning SUVs seems too extreme, there are intermediate steps we could take, like banning certain designs (as the scientist in our cartoon suggests), or banning bullbars. This is something that could be done on a state-by-state basis (if for some odd unaccountable reason we don’t feel like any progress will happen at the Federal level for a while.)
TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON
This cartoon has four panels. All four panels are set in a fancy-looking government office. There are two characters, a scientist (we can tell she’s a scientist because she’s wearing a white lab coat) and Uncle Sam.
PANEL 1
The scientist is holding a clipboard and explaining something to Uncle Sam. Uncle Sam reacts dramatically, raising a finger into the air and looking determined.
SCIENTIST: Over three hundred child pedestrians were killed in accidents last year, and thousands more injured.
SAM: That’s awful! Keeping kids safe is our highest priority! What can we do?
PANEL 2
SCIENTIST: The best first step is to slow traffic down! Speed bumps, traffic circles, lower speed limits, traffic cameras… Slower cars save lives.
SAM: Hmm… Uh huh.
PANEL 3
The scientist pulls down a big display, which shows a childish drawing of an SUV hitting four stickfigure children. The stickfigure children go flying, and have “X”s for eyes. Sam looks fearful.
SCIENTIST: And we should do something about oversized SUVs and trucks with high blunt noses. People think they’re safer, but when they hit kids they’re deadly.
SAM: So we need to regulate them?
PANEL 4
Uncle Sam backs away, fake grinning and holding up his palms in a “stop” gesture.
SCIENTIST: No, we need to ban them.
SAM: Hey, aren’t we catastrophizing? People can always make new kids, right?
CHICKEN FAT WATCH
“Chicken fat” is obsolete cartoonist terminology for unimportant details cartoonists sneak in.
The front of the desk has the Great Seal of the United States attached to it, with an image of a bald eagle holding a bundle of arrows and an olive branch in its talons. But in panel two it’s holding a lit stick of dynamite and an open beer can. And in panel four it’s holding a rifle and a smartphone.
On the shelves behind the desk is a bust. In panel one, it’s a bust of George Washington labeled “GW.” In panel two, it’s a bust of Linn Manual Miranda, labeled “LMM.” And in panel four, it’s a bust of E.T., labeled “ET.”
I think there’s a bug. The image is the same as the previous comic, but the description under it (and the title) match the recent “Our Highest Priority” comic that appeared on other sites (Patreon and leftcartoons).