They stand at the side of the road as silent sentinels to the untimely death of a motorist or a passenger. Descansos. The Spanish word for the simple crosses and elaborate piles of teddy bears and memorabilia that commemorate the passing of a loved one involved in a traffic accident. The little roadside shrines were first seen in this country near the Mexican border, but they have increasingly found their way north. As the shear number of descansos proliferate across our countryside, I have often wondered whether they help to raise our awareness of the carnage that occurs on our highways. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that there are about thirty-four thousand traffic fatalities in this country annually. Thirty-four thousand! In the eight years and eight months since we invaded Afghanistan, that amounts to almost three hundred thousand fatalities.

We love to drive our cars. The sense of adventure and freedom is almost . . . . addicting. I find it curious that we Americans (and I include myself in the “we”), so outraged by British Petroleum’s damage in the Gulf of Mexico, seem to be completely unwilling to examine how our behavior contributes to the problem. We blithely continue to drive our petroleum-powered automobiles, often while tuned in to radio news reports of BP's failed capping efforts in the Deep Water Horizon disaster. This is akin to wolfing down a greasy hamburger while reading about heart disease on the internet. As with our decades-long, ineffectual "war on drugs", the old law of supply and demand is hard at work here. We point the finger at the growing power of dangerous international drug cartels, while failing to address the source of the problem: the end users who make illegal drug trafficking one of the most lucrative industries on the planet. And who do we blame for the petroleum problem, when we even acknowledge that there is a problem? The suppliers: Exxon, BP, and others. Dangerous drug cartels and Big Oil are not the problem. In both cases the problem is a society comprised of addicts.

To take it a step further, I don't believe it is merely our addiction to petroleum for which we must find a 'cure'. I believe the cars themselves are a significant part of the problem. If we weren’t driving cars with internal combustion engines, using oil and gasoline, we would be driving electric cars, with their lithium batteries. That’s a bit like substituting methadone for heroin. It is still the self-destructive lifestyle of an addict. Our society would still suffer from an unacceptable number of vehicular fatalities. We would still be designing and building cities that marginalize our children and our elderly. And, we would still be contributing an alienating influence to our communities, both in the form of accessibility to public space, and in our communications with each other. When it comes to the automobile, we have seen the addicts and they are us.

I don't intend to be part of that car-addicted "we" anymore. I am joining the "we that walks", a group of people who believe that the small but certain efforts of individuals can add up to real change. The organization America Walks notes that, “Although 41% of all trips made in the United States are one mile or less, fewer than 10% of all trips are made by walking and biking.” I have devoted my career to promoting the creation of walkable communities, from my decades long involvement with Arcosanti to the founding of Manzanita Village Cohousing Community. I am fortunate. I only live a mile from my office and the weather in Prescott Arizona is rather benign, enabling me to walk to work most of the time. So, under the heading of: “If you don’t walk the walk, then don’t talk the talk”, I have committed myself to walking to work. If you happen to see me, honk your horn in support. Or, better yet, get out of your car and walk along with me.

When we Americans realize the price we are paying for our addiction to the automobile, we may finally begin to alter our behavior. It is not merely the carnage on the highways. It is also our unconscionable gluttony for oil, as well as our unhealthy indifference to our own well being. Perhaps the most jarring reminder of the effect of our dependence on the automobile today is not the toll memorialized by the descansos on the highway. Perhaps it is the death and destruction happening right now in the Gulf of Mexico. Perhaps we should erect a shrine on the edge of the Gulf to remind us of our loss.