We live in a society that is built around the automobile, and encourages people to build their lives and identify around the automobile. This trait is not entirely new in our evolution, but it has never been more extreme than it is now… and it comes with some risk. 

If we live long enough we will have to confront the fact that we cannot operate a car safely anymore. When this happens we are stripped of our long established routines and a major aspect of our identity. If we wait until the very last moment, let us say around the age of ninety, the effect is complete collapse as we will be too old to start from scratch building new routines. If we begin earlier in life, let us say around the age of seventy, and slowly adapt to a life without a car, the transition is much more manageable. And by the time we turn ninety, letting go of the car completely is hardly noticed. Of course, if we never build our lives around the car in the first place we will simply putter along to the end of our lives without knowing this experience at all.

Now, take this concept and apply it to a society as a whole; a society whose economy is built around the car,.. whose identity is built around the car. As the population grows, and the economy grows, the infrastructure expands to the point of becoming unwieldy. There will come a point when, for one reason or another, the society will not be able to maintain the infrastructure that the car depends on. If we wait until the last moment to transition away from the car the effects will be catastrophic.

I am not saying we should all become Amish and reject the car altogether, but all societies are natural structures that are always in a seral state. No matter how clever we may consider ourselves, no matter what computer models we may devise, human societies are natural structures that must always adapt and evolve. People who have a static image in their mind of a perfect society that exists without alteration or adaptation are sowing the seeds of collapse. Although, I do realize that catastrophe might be what people really wish to experience in this life.