Advantages And Disadvantages Of Cars As In In An Article “Transport Today” By Gilbert And Pearl

Advantages And Disadvantages Of Cars As In In An Article “Transport Today” By Gilbert And Pearl

In an article “Transport Today” by Gilbert and Pearl, in their book Transport Revolutions: Moving People and Freight without Oil, the authors make it clear that the lives of almost all people around the world are totally dependent on movement from one place to the other (Gilbert and Perl p, 65). People seek reasonably priced ways of transporting goods from one region to the other. The thesis of this article is that, travel and movement of goods have been an essential aspect of human experience since the ancient times that were characterized by poor infrastructure to the modern times when the mode of transport has been made easier by motor vehicles. Gilbert and Pearl, point out that the transport challenges that people experienced in the olden times necessitated the development of a more efficient and faster mode of transport (Gilbert and Perl p, 65). Gilbert and Pearl position their arguments in such a way that they prop-up the fact that motor vehicles have more benefits than disadvantages. They make it clear that it is through the development of motor vehicles that human beings have been able to travel far and wide (Gilbert and Perl p, 65).  Evidence to the fact that motor vehicles are more beneficial to conventional modes of transport is presented in form of comparisons. The article conducts a thorough scrutiny of motor vehicle and transport sector and presents some of the disadvantages associated with traditional means of transport.

The article, in addition, looks at some of the disadvantages associated with cars. Among these are: an increase in the rate of environmental pollution, rising costs of owning a car, uncontrolled movement of people from rural to urban areas, total dependence on cars for transport, in addition to increase in fuel costs. The other disadvantages associated with cars, as illustrated by Gilbert and Pearl, is that they may result in the death of many people through accidents (Gilbert and Perl p, 67). Gilbert and Pearl provide some figures concerning some of the fatal accidents that have occurred across the world.

The work of Gilbert and Pearl brings to light some of problems that will impact on the contemporary society’s reliance on motor vehicle transport in the light of challenges posed by decreased supply of oil and changes in climate. Gilbert and Pearl propose organizational in addition to practical inventions that have potential to guarantee effective and safe movement of persons and commodities in ways that reduce damage to the environment in addition to making maximum use of renewable energy sources (Gilbert and Perl p, 67). The authors come to a conclusion that the benefits that will be obtained from the use of motor vehicles in the twenty first century will exceed the advantages of the previous centuries and set a base for continued use of this mode of transport in the successive centuries. They make it clear that the future of the motor vehicle industry as well as the transport sector hold great promise to the entire human race (Gilbert and Perl p, 68). In the future, according to Gilbert and Pearl, more efficient and faster cars will be developed. They argue that it will come a time when most of the people will own a vehicle. The benefits associated with vehicles will thus be enjoyed by a large proportion of people.

The rhetorical strategies used by Gilbert and Pearl in their work are narration, argumentation and cause and effect analysis. The authors bring to our attention the transport situation as it was before the invention of motor vehicles as well as the advancements that the transport secto.............