While Americans prize the ability to get behind the wheel and hit
the open road, they have not always agreed on what constitutes
safe, decorous driving or who is capable of it. "Mobility without
Mayhem" is a lively cultural history of America's fear of and
fascination with driving, from the mid-twentieth century to the
present. Jeremy Packer analyzes how driving has been understood by
experts, imagined by citizens, regulated by traffic laws, governed
through education and propaganda, and represented in films,
television, magazines, and newspapers. Whether considering
motorcycles as symbols of rebellion and angst, or the role of CB
radio in regulating driving and in truckers' evasions of those
regulations, Packer shows that ideas about safe versus risky
driving often have had less to do with real dangers than with
drivers' identities.
Packer focuses on cultural figures that have been singled out as
particularly dangerous. Women drivers, hot-rodders, bikers,
hitchhikers, truckers, those who "drive while black," and road
ragers have all been targets of fear. As Packer debunks claims
about the dangers posed by each figure, he exposes biases against
marginalized populations, anxieties about social change, and
commercial and political desires to profit by fomenting fear.
Certain populations have been labeled as dangerous or deviant, he
argues, to legitimize monitoring and regulation and, ultimately, to
curtail access to automotive mobility. Packer reveals how the
boundary between personal freedom and social constraint is
continually renegotiated in discussions about safe, proper
driving.
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