Highway

Where are you at seven-o-clock on a Monday morning? If you are like most of the working populous, you are waking up for work. Skip ahead to eight-o-clock, the car starts and it is off to join the morning commute. During the daily grind, sitting in the car becomes repetitious and thoughts begin to wander. During this wondering, the thought of unlimited speed and unclogged highways overflows into every corner of your brain, but traffic begins to move again and those thoughts dissipate. This anecdote is an example of a cultural value, specifically, the value of freedom; the freedom to drive fast. The problem with this kind of value is it has the possibility to infringe upon another person’s personal value, safety. Many nations therefore have different perspectives on what freedom means to them in regards to roads and driving. A nation’s perspective on the value of freedom directly correlates to the safety of their roads.

The building of Das Autobahn reflects Germany’s national perspective on the value of freedom. The Germans, one could argue, hold driving as a national value. This mindset of this is seen in their setup of highways. The beginnings of the highway network started before WWII. This time-period is when the car makes its début to the mainstream public. Putting great strain on the dilapidated dirt roads, the car forces government to think outside the box and find new ways of moving mass amounts of traffic expected in the future. The government finds a stretch of road built along the Rheine that acts as their vision (Oster 45). This vision of freedom, built along the Rheine, allows all of Germany to interconnect to one another by way of this system of highways. The German government spends no time wasting in red tape, and ...

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...afety Administration fig. 1). There is a connection between driver training and creating a value to the value of freedom to drive.

The value of freedom is very important to have in a society. Without freedom, society would be a dystopia. A dystopia means there is nothing done out of pleasure, every action is done out of necessity. The way that America perceives freedom of travel, specifically driving and roads, creates drivers and roads built out of entitlement. Entitlement only erodes the value in the value. Without meaning, driving becomes something people have a right to participate it because they are a 18 year old. Without meaning, building roads becomes a necessity and there is no value in their existence beyond the logistical. Driving and building roads must become something we, as a nation, pride and value as we pride and value the right to free speech.