What do you think?
Rate this book
Drive On!: A Social History of the Motor Car
Stimulating, informative, provocative, and witty, Drive On! charts the international history of the car, decade by decade, examining how cars have adapted as a result of what society has demanded of them. While some chapters are devoted to quirky topics like “Where to Stop” and “What to Wear,” others look at the technological changes of the last century, from wooden wheels to computer control. Along the way, L.J.K. Setright, who is considered one of the world’s foremost and most forthright writers on the subject, offers fascinating divagations on everything from the origins of the word “dashboard” to the maximum speed of a raindrop.
- GenresCarsNonfictionHistory
406 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
2 people are currently reading
129 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 30, 2016
I simply cannot bear to read any more of this book, so am giving up on page 162. I really tried, but having entered a chapter on taxation of cars, the likelihood of my throwing the book against the wall rose to dangerous levels. It’s a library book, so such behaviour would be totally unacceptable. This is going to be perhaps the most vindictive book review I’ve ever written.
I started ‘Drive On!’ with the best of intentions, believing that a social history of the car would supplement my research on car use and policies to discourage it. Alas, I forgot a very important fact: people who write books about cars tend to have strong opinions about them. In the case of L.J.K Setright, these opinions are diametrically opposed to my own. That I managed to get 162 pages in is thus something of a miracle; I read most of that with gritted teeth and frequent angry exclamations.
What makes this all the more galling is that the information within the book that was new to me wasn’t very interesting! I don’t much care about the mechanics of car technology, whilst the author clearly does very much indeed. Given that it was titled a ‘social’ history, I was expecting a thoughtful discussion of the ways in which modern society has been shaped by the car. NOPE. Indeed, on page 155 I found the bald statement, ‘That is why we need to examine not what the car has done to society, but what society has done to the car - an altogether sorrier tale’. The thesis of the first half of this book is that meddling governments have held back the wonderful progress of the car with the arbitrary and pointless imposition of speed limits and taxation. I was struck speechless by such blithe comments as, ‘Speed limits govern most of the roads in the Emperor [Napoleon]’s wake - speed limits that have been imposed for what prove on examination to be political purposes’. Political purposes, you say? Could it be that the massive toll of death and injury caused by fast-moving mechanical vehicles was unpalatable to some? Why ever might that have been?!
I will try to calm down, but this book seems expressly written to raise my blood pressure. The style is rambling and unstructured, constantly makes unsubstantiated generalisations, fragments the text with pointless footnotes, and includes bafflingly incongruous analogies. None of this would attract good marks in a student essay. The tone is pompous and self-righteous, seemingly determined to demonstrate that the transformation of travel during the 19th century was solely due to the car. Trains, buses, trams, and bicycles might just as well never have been invented. Moreover, I cannot understand how someone can possibly write what claims to be a social history of the car without giving some time to its drawbacks. To the air pollution, noise pollution, carbon emissions, accident risk, effect on obesity, degradation of the built environment, cost of roads, entrenchment of social inequality, and so forth. There is even a moment when the author essentially denies that climate change exists, which is like red rag to a bull for me.
Funnily enough, many paragraphs are devoted to griping about the early law that cars in the UK had to be preceded by someone with a red flag. Despite their current dominance of the transport system and entrenchment in current first world lifestyles, according to this book cars and their owners are still a persecuted minority subject to such unfairly arbitrary regulation. What nonsense. Considering the amount they cost the public sector and the damage they impose on society as a whole, cars are remarkably unregulated, especially in America. If you want a country where car ownership and use is carefully regulated and its effects controlled, look to the (in my opinion fascinating) transport policies of Singapore.
Rather than continuing in this vein, as I could do for some time, I will conclude with two remarks. Firstly, if you would like to read a book about the social impact of cars (albeit from an entirely America-centric perspective) I recommend Carjacked: The Culture of the Automobile and Its Effect on Our Lives. Secondly, you should not attempt to read ‘Drive On!’ because it is worse than the oeuvre of Jeremy Clarkson. I’ve read one of Clarkson’s many collections of opinion pieces and, whilst it promulgated just the same persecution mentality as this book, it at least had the merit of being intermittently funny. 'Drive On!' doesn’t even manage that. However, both spur me to continue my research into policies that would actively horrify their authors, as well as improving the UK transport system as a whole.
I started ‘Drive On!’ with the best of intentions, believing that a social history of the car would supplement my research on car use and policies to discourage it. Alas, I forgot a very important fact: people who write books about cars tend to have strong opinions about them. In the case of L.J.K Setright, these opinions are diametrically opposed to my own. That I managed to get 162 pages in is thus something of a miracle; I read most of that with gritted teeth and frequent angry exclamations.
What makes this all the more galling is that the information within the book that was new to me wasn’t very interesting! I don’t much care about the mechanics of car technology, whilst the author clearly does very much indeed. Given that it was titled a ‘social’ history, I was expecting a thoughtful discussion of the ways in which modern society has been shaped by the car. NOPE. Indeed, on page 155 I found the bald statement, ‘That is why we need to examine not what the car has done to society, but what society has done to the car - an altogether sorrier tale’. The thesis of the first half of this book is that meddling governments have held back the wonderful progress of the car with the arbitrary and pointless imposition of speed limits and taxation. I was struck speechless by such blithe comments as, ‘Speed limits govern most of the roads in the Emperor [Napoleon]’s wake - speed limits that have been imposed for what prove on examination to be political purposes’. Political purposes, you say? Could it be that the massive toll of death and injury caused by fast-moving mechanical vehicles was unpalatable to some? Why ever might that have been?!
I will try to calm down, but this book seems expressly written to raise my blood pressure. The style is rambling and unstructured, constantly makes unsubstantiated generalisations, fragments the text with pointless footnotes, and includes bafflingly incongruous analogies. None of this would attract good marks in a student essay. The tone is pompous and self-righteous, seemingly determined to demonstrate that the transformation of travel during the 19th century was solely due to the car. Trains, buses, trams, and bicycles might just as well never have been invented. Moreover, I cannot understand how someone can possibly write what claims to be a social history of the car without giving some time to its drawbacks. To the air pollution, noise pollution, carbon emissions, accident risk, effect on obesity, degradation of the built environment, cost of roads, entrenchment of social inequality, and so forth. There is even a moment when the author essentially denies that climate change exists, which is like red rag to a bull for me.
Funnily enough, many paragraphs are devoted to griping about the early law that cars in the UK had to be preceded by someone with a red flag. Despite their current dominance of the transport system and entrenchment in current first world lifestyles, according to this book cars and their owners are still a persecuted minority subject to such unfairly arbitrary regulation. What nonsense. Considering the amount they cost the public sector and the damage they impose on society as a whole, cars are remarkably unregulated, especially in America. If you want a country where car ownership and use is carefully regulated and its effects controlled, look to the (in my opinion fascinating) transport policies of Singapore.
Rather than continuing in this vein, as I could do for some time, I will conclude with two remarks. Firstly, if you would like to read a book about the social impact of cars (albeit from an entirely America-centric perspective) I recommend Carjacked: The Culture of the Automobile and Its Effect on Our Lives. Secondly, you should not attempt to read ‘Drive On!’ because it is worse than the oeuvre of Jeremy Clarkson. I’ve read one of Clarkson’s many collections of opinion pieces and, whilst it promulgated just the same persecution mentality as this book, it at least had the merit of being intermittently funny. 'Drive On!' doesn’t even manage that. However, both spur me to continue my research into policies that would actively horrify their authors, as well as improving the UK transport system as a whole.
July 10, 2019
Setright is a British Brock Yates with a larger library at his fingertips.
The first section is an excellent primer on the evolution of car technology and the players involved. After that, Setright goes in more for provocation than analysis: Nader is a money grubbing "safety monger," there should be no speed limits, clean air technology is a political sham and they should never have taken the lead out of gasoline.
I imagine his eyes twinkling when he writes these things, otherwise I'd have to condemn him. The latter chapter are very short and don't have much meat on them.
Abandon any hope of this being an actual social history of the automobile. Read it as a window into the soul of a British car writer who has a long bibliography and you'll have fun.
The first section is an excellent primer on the evolution of car technology and the players involved. After that, Setright goes in more for provocation than analysis: Nader is a money grubbing "safety monger," there should be no speed limits, clean air technology is a political sham and they should never have taken the lead out of gasoline.
I imagine his eyes twinkling when he writes these things, otherwise I'd have to condemn him. The latter chapter are very short and don't have much meat on them.
Abandon any hope of this being an actual social history of the automobile. Read it as a window into the soul of a British car writer who has a long bibliography and you'll have fun.
February 20, 2016
A very intellectual book about the sociology, history and philosophy of the development of the car. I learnt a lot from this book and had to agree about the various national predispositions to various developments of the car. E.g., USA - just throw more cubic inches at it. I wasn't aware of some of the neat innovations of Honda, but after owning a Beat, I know the fabulous outcomes of Honda's thoughtful approach to producing a great vehicle. The only drawback is the repetition of ideas that are scattered through the book. I will now do some research on the Fiat 128, Honda Prelude, and Citroen CS. I was hoping that he would mention the DSG gearboxes and something about hybrids. Sadly no. It could do with a serious update as things have moved, and yes, never fast enough.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews