Excerpt from Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451", copyright 1950.... [Guy Montag walks Clarisse McClellan home] "I sometimes think drivers don't know what grass is, or flowers, because they never see them slowly," she said. "If you showed a driver a green blur, Oh yes! he'd say, that's grass! A pink blur! That's a rose garden! White blurs are houses. Brown blurs are cows. My uncle drove slowly on a highway once. He drove forty miles an hour and they jailed him for two days. Isn't that funny, and sad, too? ...My uncle was arrested another time - did I tell you? - for being a pedestrian." - The New York Times says "Frightening in its implications... Mr. Bradbury's account of this insane world, which bears many alarming resemblances to our own, is fascinating." - Success Machine says "Its not safe to ride my bike in Toronto. It's not safe to drive a small car on freeways with 18-wheelers. How can our transportation system survive an oil shortage if smaller cars and lower speeds cannot be accomodated safely or legally?"
It is not safe either to take a shower; you can slip and break your neck, or can fall down the stairs. Or be mugged entering your home (if you return at 3.00 AM with lipstick smear in your shirt collar, your wife will do it). Life is full of risks, and the vast majority of them are acceptable. If we compare the number of car accidents in highways involving 18 wheelers and small cars, with the number of cars and 18 wheelers running everyday, the number is quite insignificant. The same applies to number of airplanes flying worldwide and the number of accidents. That's an acceptable risk because the benefits derived from the activities of truck and airplane transportation are far higher than the deleterous results of a small number of accidents. America was called once: "Home of the Brave". For many reasons, now can be called "Home of the Fearsome". Americans (and in some extent Canadians and Europeans) now live in terror of unfounded fears and dangers, either from terrorists, "little brown people" immigration, or from imaginary or exaggerated environmental risks. Come on, man, lose you fears and start living happier!
