The Culture of Driving: From 1950s Freedom to 2050s Automation
by Brent Antonson
Once, driving meant freedom.
Not autonomy as a software update, but freedom — the kind you could smell in gasoline and feel in your chest when the tachometer climbed past four thousand.
In the 1950s, cars weren’t just transportation; they were liberation. America was rebuilding, highways were fresh ribbons of optimism, and Route 66 was more than a road — it was a rite of passage. The Sunday drive was a ritual: carving a path through countryside curves, windows down, radio humming, the world unfolding just to be seen.
Then came the 1970s. The OPEC crisis hit, gas prices exploded, and suddenly mobility felt like privilege. We were told we were running out of oil — a myth or manipulation depending on who you asked — but the cultural message was clear: driving had consequences.
By the 1980s, when I first held a license, there was still space to breathe. Rush hour was annoying, not apocalyptic. Driving at midnight felt cinematic, not desperate. You could still pull over just to think. It was one of the last decades when roads felt ours.
The 1990s changed the mood. The commute turned combative. Los Angeles freeways became psychological war zones; people literally shot each other for cutting them off. The car, once a vessel of escape, hardened into armor for the ego.
In the 2000s, car ownership began outpacing population growth. By the 2020s, we had over 1.5 billion vehicles on the road — one for every five people alive. Infrastructure strained under the weight. My one-hour rush hour from the ’90s is now two, even with new lanes and lights. The Sunday drive became a queue of brake lights. What was once “carving a path through the countryside” is now “lining up to get through lights frantic.”
So I go at 3 a.m.
It’s quiet then — just me, the WRX, and the ghosts of freedom. I call it vehicular anarchy: taking back the roads when the world’s asleep. Elon can automate a fleet, but he can’t duplicate the 5-speed thunder, the communion between human, machine, and asphalt.
“The automobile was once an instrument of escape; now it’s a device of control.” — Marshall McLuhan
Route 66 became a metaphor, Disney’s Cars turned nostalgia into franchise, and somehow the thing that symbolized movement became the emblem of congestion. It’s ironic — we used to love the drive, now we tolerate it just to get from A to B.
“Automation doesn’t replace choice; it replaces the illusion that you ever had one.” — Anonymous engineer, 2035
Still, I pray we don’t lose total control — even for safety’s sake. Because this culture didn’t happen by accident. We built it, brick by spark plug, and grew loyal to the car the way a dog does to its master.
We don’t just drive.
We become the drive.