Americans are slaves to cars. We treat the ability to drive a monster truck to the grocery store as a sacred right and anyone who would dare impede our progress for a handful of seconds (pedestrians, yes, but ESPECIALLY those rotten tree-hugging cyclists) are to be scorned and intimidated at best, summarily executed at worst. We've hollowed out our cities for parking lots and leveled neighborhoods and green spaces to make room for ever-expanding freeways, but god forbid we invest in public transportation - the domain of socialists and poor people. And so many of us have effectively brainwashed ourselves into believing that all of this is right and good and not, in fact, utterly insane.