In Jack Kerouac’s books, there are scenes sketched on roads where all the fragility of life is exposed while solitary and wounded characters encounter vast spaces, open to the plains or the mountains, in a muddled vision of America which reconnects with the uncertain and painful identity of the coursers of the woods, half nomads, half vagabonds. Starry nights, half-banana moons, blazing sun, light rain or heavy snow: the driver behind the windshield always appears like a sort of insect which, unsure of its existence, flying between the hands, opens its mouth to talk and swallow the miles as much as the troubles of his life.
All the formidable work of Kerouac, this French Canadian who is among the greatest writers in the United States, is punctuated with stories of half-drunk drivers who drive without even bothering to have a driver’s license. In On the road, Kerouac shows countless scenes of the genre. One day, he gets into the brand new car of a Los Angeles musician. “I don’t drink when I drive,” he says… while drinking.
The place of the car in the imagination of men is reflected in their literature, in their art. “A roaring automobile, which seems to be running on grapeshot, is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace,” wrote Gabriele D’Annunzio, one of the fathers of fascism.
Before the war, the poet Alain Grandbois, son of a timber merchant from Saint-Casimir de Portneuf, raced along the Mediterranean at the wheel of a powerful Bugatti. The painter Jean Paul Riopelle bought two Bugattis. One was sold in 2003 to cheese giant Lino Saputo for $245,000. Whey equivalent this year to $385,000.
In Montreal, Hubert Aquin became the first promoter of the Formula 1 Grand Prix. He was arrested while getting into a stolen car. In Next episode, he saw himself committing suicide in a crushed car. Bloody, sad and crazy story of the men behind the wheel of their car.
Victor-Lévy Beaulieu, behind the wheel of his immense American convertible, I remember seeing him happy with the feeling of being there as big and mysterious as Moby Dick. Some time ago our most Balzacian writer sold his Morgan, as the media reported, a powerful hand-built British car.
The actor Jean Reno, famous for The big Blue, this film where he plunges into the depths with his appearance of false Commander Cousteau, recently explained on camera why he bought a Ferrari. He saw this pile of colored sheet metal as a “work of art”. He was disillusioned when a jaded Johnny Hallyday told him, not without a certain contempt, that he had owned seven.
Consider the multitude of videos that real estate speculator Luc Poirier keeps posting about his cars. After boasting of having carried out a “historic” transaction by selling land to the Northvolt company for 240 million, he has since continued to show off his new Ferraris to everyone. Can an orgy of sheet metal and motor oil give depth to a society reduced to the simple dimensions of a game of Monopoly?
A year ago, François Legault chose to crown, in front of an electric Hummer, the supposed ecological shift in Quebec. When it comes to symbolizing excessive consumption and waste, we couldn’t do better.
In 2022, according to the latest figures available through the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec, 80,464 men were involved in road accidents. How many women for the same period? Not far from half as much.
I hear you say to me, with a suspicious air: “Yes, but there are more men who drive!” ” Fake. It’s practically the same thing. Nearly 2.8 million female drivers and 2.9 million male drivers. The only difference perhaps: women drive a little less regularly than men.
Data analyzed by Quebec’s chief scientist shows that three-quarters of impaired driving offenders are men. They are still the ones who commit the most speeding violations. Overall, accidents involving male drivers are usually more serious than those involving female drivers. In the United States, studies also find that men are more likely to engage in risky driving practices. Do not wear your seat belt, for example, like Minister Geneviève Guilbault here.
In France, the findings are of the same order. Nine out of ten young drivers killed on the road are men. Almost all drunk drivers involved in accidents are men. The vast majority of invalidated licenses are also those of men.
To debunk the sexist myth of driving as a virile attribute, an advertising campaign has just been launched in France. The road safety association Victimes et Citoyens rightly emphasizes this in its advertisements: “Drive like a woman”.
Tank culture, imbued with old-fashioned masculine virility, amplifies the logics of power, competition and unbridled consumerism specific to the neoliberal policies which swallow up our world. The presence of women in this process changes nothing, as long as, once they come to power, they clearly intend to behave in the same way as men. Minister Guilbault, when she says she wants to manage roads and cars before public transportation, offers a sad example.
Can we think that it will be the same with these “ top guns » from the private sector that are Geneviève Biron and Christine Germain, now all busy increasing the performance of the health system, as if it were basically a matter of optimizing the performance of an engine that is not running round? It is difficult, in society, to consider that it is sometimes the vehicles we take that set us back.