Sandal-friendly Brake Pedals

Prick with a Fork notes the SMH's blood-libel against meat eaters in a ridiculous bit of vegetarian propaganda. Fairfax's Melbourne paper prints this anti-car rant:

Thanks to Nicola Roxon and the federal government, we now have plain packaging for cigarettes. Cigarette sales are declining. Can we please move on to plain packaging for cars?

Over the past 30 years, I've watched the design of cars becoming ever more aggressive and sinister. Scowling headlights and hulking lines. Tinted windows so other road users can't see the driver. Multiple exhausts for the grand prix effect. Then there's the growing number of 4WDs, so that our roads appear to be populated by tanks and other armoured vehicles. Meanwhile, the power and acceleration of cars continue to increase.

All this is paralleled by, and fuels, increasingly aggressive driving and growing road rage. Education campaigns and ''courtesy training'' are all very well, but while aggressive design and excessive power continue, what hope have we got of changing driver behaviour?

Maybe aggressive cars should be required to have scenes of road accident injuries painted on their sides as a warning. Such cars are dangerous to human life and health, just as cigarette smoking is.
Michael Howes, Ascot Vale

Get that man a Trabant. Mr Howes has previously reviewed cars.

Can we look forward to fuel efficiency, modest design and greenhouse and safety awareness? No, we get six or, unbelievably, eight cylinders and retuning to make more power. We get the quasi-sexual launch trimmings, with the tantalising glimpse of disc brake or sensually curved wheel. We get the desperate attempt to say that nothing's changed and we can go on consuming resources and producing greenhouse gasses.
It's because Australian males have small dicks and need some bullshit compensation

He describes himself as a:

63 yr. old left winger living in a 5 star shoebox in an inner suburb of Melbourne. Living alone, but have a 30 yr old son living in a neighbouring suburb. Retired and loving life. I love intercourse with people of all races, religions and colours. I harbour an intense dislike for Bush, Blair and Howard and their co-horts, as well as right wing shock jocks.

And he reads The Age...