Reader Paul Murphy sends along this ad from the Australian division of Giant Bicycles. The spot, by the Melbourne-based firm Leo Burnett, started airing last summer as part of Giant’s “Real Riders” campaign. Imagine if images of grocery bags slung over handlebars could somehow saturate the airwaves as much as sleek new luxury sedans gliding through traffic-free downtown streets.

Has anyone seen an ad with so many scenes of city cycling air in the U.S.?

Maybe Kia could have been just a little less transparent about marketing cars to kids than this Super Bowl ad from last year. Photo: AutoEvolution

While the choked parking lots at many suburban high schools might mislead you, young people today are less interested in driving and owning cars than their counterparts in previous generations. This is happy news for environmentalists and complete streets advocates, who see fewer vehicles on the road as key to a healthier, wealthier society. For the global auto industry, though, it is an existential threat not to be ignored.

Generation Y’s reluctance to embrace car culture may be temporary, reflecting merely the tough economic times, especially for those burdened with college debt. But studies show teens now maintain connectivity through the internet, not though cars, and teen driving rates have been in steady decline since the late seventies. So young people’s lack of interest in driving may presage a more fundamental shift in how we connect with other people, where we choose to live and work, and how we construct our identities. Either way, the auto industry isn’t taking any chances. Here are just a few tactics car makers are employing to take back the future.

Ratcheting up marketing to kids. Marketing cars directly to children pays off big for car companies even though they won’t be driving or buying their own for years. American children in particular hold real sway over family purchases: more than half of parents surveyed by JD Power said their children had meaningful input in choosing the family vehicle.

Children also carry into adulthood the brand awareness that marketing creates. Many adults own or still lust after their childhood “dream car.” So, in the 1990s, preschoolers started seeing ads created for them on shows like Blue’s Clues. And the Kia Sorento ad with toys whooping it up on a Vegas joyride, the Town and Country ad in which kids on a sidewalk envy kids riding by in the minivan, and the VW Passat ad starring that achingly cute boy dressed as Darth Vader are a few of the growing slew of commercials targeted at children as much as their parents.

Traditional ads are only part of a marketing mix that increasingly includes social media, which can cut parents out of the loop and get kids marketing to each other (one early successful product launch using social media had young people passing virtual BMW keys among Facebook friends). At the local level, Ford dealers have teens recruiting potential car buyers in return for money for their high schools.

Going Urban. Young adults have reversed the trend their parents set by showing their preference for living in cities rather than suburbs — and the car industry means to follow them there. The iconic advertising image of the lone vehicle winding through a stunning wilderness is being replaced with that of a car traversing a gorgeous or gritty cityscape. Once solely the backdrop for certain luxury vehicles, the city now provides the setting for ads hawking entry-level cars such as the Ford Fiesta, Kia Soul, and Fiat 500.

Better Living Through Car Ownership. Other types of marketing geared toward wooing young urbanites back to car culture are perhaps more insidious. To co-opt young people interested in urban issues, efforts are underway such as “Future Mobility Now”, which “is inviting Europe’s brightest young talent to get involved and have a say on the big issues facing the transport industry.” This initiative, funded by the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, held a conference this summer at which Daimler Chairman Dieter Zetsche gave the welcoming speech to Gen Y “delegates” who considered such leading questions as, “How can cars and transport help us lead better lives?”

Caring about sharing. Car-sharing, whether cooperative or commercial, arose as a way to reduce car ownership and increase mobility options for people who don’t need or want to own a vehicle. It remains to be seen if it will deliver on its potential to cut down on traffic, pollution, and household debt now that the automakers have decided to turn this potential threat into an opportunity.

Through its recent partnership with Zipcar, Ford is bringing its sedans and SUVs to college campuses across the US. The company’s stated goal is to allow students to “experience” its “latest fuel-efficient vehicles, while helping them reduce their cost of living and help relieve congestion on campus.” While this sounds terribly noble, the battle for advantage in a slow-growth market could well be won this way. It’s no surprise that on the heels of Ford’s deal, GM announced it was teaming up with peer-to-peer network Relay Rides.

And there’s always the chance that this driving “experience” could lead students to view ownership of these vehicles, loaded with connectivity and luxury, not as future needs but immediate wants. Undermining the social good to come out of car-sharing may not be the industry’s purpose in entering the market, but they’ll surely benefit from this potential side effect.

Auto industry leaders, it seems, take young people’s disinterest in a car-dependent lifestyle seriously. Advocates for other transportation options should also be inspired to push even harder for smarter planning, better transit, and greater safety for cyclists and pedestrians. Demographics may seem to favor change, but a deep-pocketed industry is determined to turn that tide, and they’re just getting rolling.

Anne Lutz Fernandez, a former investment banker and marketing executive, is co-author, with anthropologist Catherine Lutz, of Carjacked: The Culture of the Automobile and its Effect on Our Lives.

Before Streetsblog goes offline for the Thanksgiving weekend, I’d like to reiterate my unsolicited advice for Jennifer Lopez: There is an easy and, I believe, highly effective way to control the damage from the revelation that you did not actually film this Fiat 500 Cabrio commercial on the streets of the Bronx.

For those just tuning in, The Smoking Gun broke this story last night. J Lo filmed her close-ups for the Fiat spot in Los Angeles, while a body double kept the driver’s seat warm for the actual footage from the Bronx, and a digital effects firm added a few touches of computer-generated boogie-down fakery — all to make it seem like Lopez was actually driving around her old neighborhood, on the streets that “inspire” her.

The sophisticated operation to spare J Lo from having to venture out to her home borough is not just great NYC tabloid fodder — it’s national news. So, on to the image rehab advice, which is pretty simple: J Lo needs to film a bike ad in the Bronx. Here are three reasons why this is a great idea:

1. Big points for being down to earth. The suggested retail price of the Fiat 500 Cabrio is $26,000. It’s not a Benz, but it’s kind of an ostentatious display when you can get just about anywhere you need to go in NYC with an unlimited Metrocard and a bike. Even a very nice new city bike, if J Lo were to pitch one, won’t set you back more than $600 to $1,200.
2. The playing-with-kids scenes will be way more believable. Even before The Smoking Gun story came out, the Fiat ad didn’t exactly scream authenticity. That part where the kids run and skip next to a moving motor vehicle with J Lo inside? Didn’t seem fun. A group ride with J Lo would actually look like a good time.
3. Trendsetting. As far as I know, there are no big-time celebrity endorsement deals with the major bike manufacturers, nor are there any bike ads on TV. Probably because the bike industry has a lot less to throw around than the car companies. J Lo wouldn’t be doing this bike spot for the payday, she’d do it to be a pioneer.

I say this all as a big “Out of Sight” fan and a devout viewer of American Idol Season 10 (at least until Haley got voted off). And I didn’t even get to the part about biking being healthy, good for the environment, and a much better fit than personal motorized transport for the Bronx streets that inspire J Lo.

What can I say? I’m a sucker for hometown pride. I was born about 60 miles downriver from the Motor City in Toledo, Ohio, a town sometimes known affectionately as “Little Detroit.” I remember when it was considered treasonous to drive a foreign car.

That’s the brilliance of these ads. They appeal to our inner urge to root for the underdog, our nostalgia for simpler days. Those flashes of a grand-looking Woodward Avenue. The water tower that proudly shouts “Birmingham, Michigan.”

It’s also very telling, the commodification of Detroit. It says something about Americans’ new-found fascination with cities — the same fascination that has inspired many young entrepreneurs who are working to reinvent Detroit.

But Chrysler is selective about the Detroit it celebrates. Absent is the ruin that now accounts for a large share of the city. Invisible is the crushing poverty, constantly present in the urban landscape. The driver in the most recent installment, traveling out from the center of Detroit to its suburbs, is in control of his fate (thanks to his snappy ride) in a way few in the region really are.

Despite the defiant sentimentality of its ads, Chrysler, as well, is selective about its commitment to the city of Detroit.

Chrysler's suburban office park isn't the kind of setting that inspires award-winning ad campaigns. Photo: Bobgray2011.com

If the man in the commercial were a Chrysler employee, we wouldn’t see him pulling out of a downtown parking garage. In the 1990s, Chrysler traded its headquarters in Highland Park, a tiny urban enclave nestled within Detroit’s borders, for a new suburban office park in exurban Auburn Hills.

Chrysler’s decision was by no means remarkable for the Detroit region, where job sprawl is more the rule than the exception. Only seven percent of the region’s total jobs are within three miles of the urban core anymore. You can make a strong case that sprawl, more than de-industrialization, is responsible for the city’s decline.

Meanwhile, Highland Park has never been able to replace the tax revenue that Chrysler’s employees delivered. In the last 20 years, the city has shed half its total population. Now, local officials are going to extreme measures to weather the recession. They grabbed headlines nationally last week when they decided to stop illuminating streetlights in order to save $4 million.

But who could blame Chrysler for trying to cash in on Detroit pride. After all, “Imported from Auburn Hills, Michigan” just doesn’t have the same ring, does it?

Exhibit A is from Geico, which as usual doesn’t use cars in its ads for car insurance. Instead, in this spot the company’s ubiquitous cartoon spokeslizard is depicted walking the center line of the Brooklyn Bridge bike-ped path, extolling the value of Geico auto, RV and motorcycle insurance. Then comes the caveat — “You want to find a place to park all these things? Fuhgeddaboudit! This is New York.” — before the lizard is almost squashed by a cyclist who yells at him for being in the way.

Whether you’re from the city or not, you’re in on the joke: New York is a place where space is tight and people are on the move. But also: You don’t need a car to live here, and in fact, you’re probably better off without the hassle.

Unlike typical auto ads, in which cars whip down city streets with few people and little to no traffic, in our second feature Chrysler is looking to sell viewers on the company’s 300 model as an authentic urban accessory. And in a real urban environment there are pedestrians, buses and cyclists. With retro-soul accompaniment from Jay-Z, the ad hypes the 300′s 31 highway MPG rating with a montage of Detroit vignettes, including at least four shots of bikes. In contrast to the folks at General Motors, maybe Chrysler has figured out that ridiculing other modes is not the way to win the hearts of young potential car buyers.

Seen another way, of course, the message here could just as easily translate to “Buy this car and be the envy of all the chumps on the other side of the windshield as you cruise through the remnants of a dying city to your modernist suburban estate.” In which case, in addition to this spot sort of undermining the “Imported From Detroit” theme and its connotations of urban pride, it should be noted that all those cyclists, bus riders and pedestrians are getting much better mileage without the 300′s $27,000 base price tag.

If you’ve been watching the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, which resumes tonight, you’ve probably seen this Subaru spot, called “Baby Driver.” In it, a distressed father leans into the passenger side window, imploring his preschool-age daughter to be careful on the road — stay off the freeways, put the phone away — to the point that she interrupts with a sweetly impatient “Daddy, o-kay.” When he gives up the keys, we see the child as a present-day teenager. As she backs out of the driveway, to the obligatory strains of an acoustic guitar, the word “love” pops up on the screen. It dissolves into the Subaru logo as dad’s voice intones: “We knew this day was coming. That’s why we bought a Subaru.”

From his body language and tone of voice, the way he watches helplessly as she drives away, you’d think his daughter was shipping out for Afghanistan. What the voice-over might as well have said was, “No one wants their kids to drive. We know it’s incredibly dangerous. So we bought a Subaru in hopes that our child won’t die.”

If you can get past the myth of driving as an unavoidable rite of passage, you have to hand it to Subaru on this one. Based on the YouTube comments, it’s pulling a lot of heartstrings. And the emphasis, at least, is on safety (albeit for those inside the Subaru). Contrast that with the current campaign from fellow March Madness sponsor Dodge, featuring commercials like the one after the jump. Given its celebration of sociopathic behavior — watch as the Charger plows heedlessly through urban crosswalks at “movie car chase” speeds — we wonder if the narration by Michael C. Hall, TV’s favorite serial killer, is more than coincidence.

It’s enough to keep a Subaru dad awake at night.

Dodge Charger: “Man’s Last Stand”

Chrysler stokes the gender wars with this ad suggesting that the American male may seem to have been tamed by the boss and neutered by the wife, but all that the rebel within needs to bust out is a $38K fully loaded Dodge Charger. The road is his last refuge, the one place where he can still be a manly man. He’ll “eat fruit” at home, but he won’t be a fruit in control of the kind of growling, ferocious muscle car that had its heyday back when men last really had it good. (For a rejoinder, click here.)

Toyota Sienna: “Mommy Like”

How does a mom, stressed from commuting to work and shuttling the kids to soccer practice day in and day out, get away from it all? Why, of course, by spending more time in her vehicle! In this commercial for the Sienna minivan, Mommy steals some quality time alone—in the backseat where the kids usually get to have all the fun. The message? Auto dependence’s problems are solved not by driving less but by buying more, including a new car chock-a-block with luxury options to distract us from the aggravation and tedium of the average 18 ½ hours Americans sit in a car each week.

Lexus: “The Next Big Thing”

Billions of dollars of ads touting safety have helped convince Americans that the phrase “safe car” is no oxymoron, notwithstanding the roughly 380,000 crash deaths over the past decade. Here’s a Lexus ad that takes to a dizzying new level the myth that car technology will solve—any minute now—the problems that the car itself has created. Its suggestion that “a real driver in a real car reacting to a real situation without real consequences” is a real possibility fosters a false sense of safety among drivers that encourages dangerous risk-taking. It also deflects the push for meaningful regulation in areas such as roof crush and crash incompatibility.

Hyundai Sonata: “Turboface”

It’s nothing new for a car company to produce a commercial that encourages speeding as an expression of freedom. But this Hyundai Sonata Turbo ad, set not on expansive wilderness roads but on compact city streets, makes the laughably miniscule disclaimer — “Professional driver on a closed course. Do not attempt”—more ironic than ever.

Hyundai Sonata: “Horizontal Bungee Jumping”

Another ad from Hyundai that finds risk-taking amusing, while also playing into the notion that we can protect ourselves from all those other bad drivers out there (in this case, the crazy young ’uns on the road)–if we just buy the right car.

Subaru: “Baby Driver”

A good parent buys the right car to protect their good children from all those bad drivers out there (in this case, the crazy young ‘uns on the road whose parents failed to give them the best car or the best advice). This is just one of the latest and most pathos-laden of ads following a remarkable trend of exploiting kids to sell cars to adults and to peddle car culture to kids. Reality bites back, though: there remains nothing more deadly to teenagers than crashes, and those with their own cars are more likely to die in them than those who share their parents’ vehicles.

Toyota Highlander: “Kid Cave”

Here’s another kid-driven beaut. “Just because you’re a parent doesn’t mean you have to be lame,” needles Nathan in this SUV commercial from a campaign founded on the power of pester marketing. Toyota is no doubt relying on surveys showing that the majority of parents say their children had meaningful input into the decision to buy the last family vehicle, especially their kids around Nathan’s age: 6-8 years old.

Chevrolet: “Chevy Runs Deep”

This one just looks like a car ad. It’s really part of a political campaign to justify the bailouts and delegitimize further industry safety and other regulation. And if you are old enough to remember Reagan’s similar “Morning in America” ads, you’ll recognize stroking people’s sense of national self-worth as a tried-and-true sales technique. Combining wistful nostalgia for the country’s economic glories of the past and bright-eyed optimism for its eco-friendly techno-future, this Chevrolet ad reminds us that our past, present, and future all depend on a healthy US auto industry, even if the cost in dollars and lives seems high.

Our independent spirit makes most Americans reluctant to believe that we are susceptible to the persuasion of advertising. And while we may not be immediately swayed by any one maker’s single pitch to run out and buy a particular model, the marketing formula works, over the long run, to feed a culture based on owning and driving cars. A dollop of family love, a dash of freedom, a heap of faith in progress and America: it’s the well-tested recipe that keeps the American car buyer coming back for more.

Lexus has suspended sales of its GX 460 after Consumer Reports issued a "don't buy" warning earlier this week. Apparently the luxury SUV's electronic "stability control" system can fail to correct drivers taking turns too quickly, resulting in a rollover risk. Times car blog Wheels reports:

Mr. Champion [Consumer Reports auto testing director] said that the problem came to light at the magazine's test track in East Haddam, Conn., while looking for "any nasty habits that might catch a driver out." He explained, "We want a car to be benign."

Speaking of nasty habits, the problem might well have come to light during this commercial shoot. Far from presenting the GX 460 as benign, Lexus hawks it as the nimble vehicle every upwardly-mobile mom needs to whip through city streets teeming with urban dangers (and cleared of urban traffic, natch). Strap in, precious, we're goin' to lacrosse practice!

So we have a carmaker promoting its product as a street-legal racing machine, and a consumer watchdog group telling the public it should not be driven as advertised -- or better yet, not driven at all.

We've tapped this vein before, but until "Closed Course/Professional Driver/Do Not Attempt" marketing goes the way of the "healthy" cigarette ad, supposed fail-safe features -- mostly designed to protect those inside the car -- will continue to be so much window dressing. Like those pedestrians in Batmom's peripheral vision.

Bicycles seem to figure more prominently in Nissan's Leaf promotion than Leafs (or Leaves, as the case may be).

That's what Nissan has done with its New York City promotion for the Leaf, an electric car slated for mass production later this year. Nissan marketing teams hit the streets earlier this week with a faux Park(ing) Day concept. Instead of filling curbside space with sod and benches, they put out some bucket seats and signs pointing to journey-to-zero.com, a flash site that I found too irritating to navigate.

As far as I can tell, this attempt to sell cars by co-opting one of the signature awareness-building strategies of the livable streets movement does not display any actual cars, or even show the image of a Nissan Leaf. It's a car-free PR campaign for cars.

(Obligatory disclaimers: Replacing internal combustion with electric batteries is great. But the zero emissions hype is way overblown, the city-destroying space-hogging problem doesn't disappear with the fossil-fuel powered engines, and electric cars can be driven just as recklessly as conventional cars.)

Apparently, the promoters got a few people to sit in these things when they rolled them out on Wednesday. But really, they need to absorb a few lessons from the Park(ing) Day masters. The sitting arrangement inside a car is inherently anti-social. Staring at a headrest and the back of someone's scalp just doesn't translate to an urban public space.

Maybe that's why the people organizing this campaign also felt compelled to hire some folks to hand out flowers. You need a little public space programming to give people a reason to stop and memorize the journey-to-zero URL.

If you want to see one of these set-ups for yourself, the Nissan promoters will be putting out their bucket seats again all day tomorrow. They have 20 spots reserved. I don't have the exact locations but I'm told there will be four each at Union Square, the Bowery, SoHo, and Tribeca. No word yet on how much the city got paid for all this highly desirable curbside real estate.

So I think it's time to coin a phrase. What's the livable streets equivalent of greenwashing?

There are many irritating things about the ad, including the lousy acting and the roundabout route the car takes (why the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and not the FDR?). At more than seven minutes (it's in two parts on YouTube), it's also tediously long.

But worst is the perpetuation of that old stereotype, the "maniac" bike rider. The driver says at the beginning that he thinks the contest will be unfair: "Sure, he gets to ride like a bat out of hell and we have to follow the traffic rules."

And of course, that's the way it goes. No doubt, the risk-taking footage is fun to watch, and some local blogs have posted favorably about the ad (even Bike Snob NYC is mild in his critique).

But Mikael Colville-Andersen at Copenhagenize has it right when he says the Mercedes spot is an effective attack on the idea that riding a bicycle in a major city could ever be comfortable or normal:

This is brilliant "Car Empire Strikes Back" marketing from Mercedes. After watching it if I had to choose between sitting in a Mercedes or riding all sub-cultural like that -- give me the Mercedes any day.…

[The car industry has] spent a century perfecting the art of marketing and now that they are faced with real competition -- the rebirth of urban cycling -- they are tweaking their adverts accordingly.

The acting in the above advert is abysmal, but the point is clear. It reinforces the misconception of urban cycling as being a lawless, adrenaline-based and sub-cultural pursuit. The smug tone is brilliantly devised and executed.…

Unless we start learning from the car industry's marketing brilliance, as they once learned from the bicycle industry, the battle is lost before the foot hits the pedal. Marketing urban cycling for regular citizens like we market every other product -- positively. At every turn.

More from around the network: Utility Cycling asks whether Google's new bike directions are a "game-changer." Hub and Spokes has a contrarian view on bike-sharing in Minneapolis. And The Transport Politic has the rundown on the top 10 transit projects completed in the U.S. and Canada over the last 10 years.

A self-described "leading advocacy group for the automobile industry on a range of public policy issues," the purpose of the Alliance seems mostly to sell the public on how keen carmakers are on using technology to advance the cause of environmental stewardship (though the mythological "green" car of the future, whatever it is, remains tantalizingly out of reach). The group's presence on Kos makes the usual MSM buy look subtle.

So what's the angle here? Are car manufacturers afraid of losing the lefty base? Aren't car-ad bereft Free Republic readers just as interested in innovations like soy seating foam?

Western Union cellphone ad from 1984. Image via NYT

It's a familiar story. And in the latest installment of its "Driven to Distraction" series, the Times lays out in detail how, in this case, it was the mobile phone industry that continued to market its product for use in a manner long believed to be hazardous to its customers and the population at large. The result: As far back as seven years ago, the Times reports, "drivers using cellphones were causing 2,600 fatal crashes a year in the United States and 570,000 accidents that resulted in a range of injuries, from minor to serious." Now a lawsuit, among the first of its kind, has been filed against Samsung and Sprint Nextel by a woman whose mother was killed by a distracted driver in Oklahoma City in 2008.

Of course a key issue is the line between provider and motorist responsibility. The driver in this case, who pleaded to misdemeanor negligent homicide, does not blame the cellular industry. "It's our choice if we're going to talk on the cellphone while driving or walking down the street or in the office," he said. "The cellphone companies don't say you should talk on the phone and drive."

Actually, they do -- and, as the Times reveals, they always have. It's certainly true that "the mobile device has moved well beyond its origins as a car phone," to paraphrase industry reps, but cellphone manufacturers and sellers are advertising the benefits of talking while driving to this day, even as they inch toward acknowledgment of the inherent dangers.

The CTIA, the industry's trade group, supports legislation banning texting while driving. It has also changed its stance on legislation to ban talking on phones while driving - for years, it opposed such laws; now it is neutral.

"This was never something we anticipated," said Mr. [Steve] Largent, head of the CTIA, adding that distracted driving is a growing threat now that more than 90 percent of Americans have cellphones. "The reality of distracted driving has become more apparent to all of us."

This supposed revelation comes nearly 50 years and thousands of casualties after Motorola developer Martin Cooper testified of the earliest mobile phones: "There should be a lock on the dial so that you couldn’t dial while driving."

The first time I saw this ad I thought my eyes and ears were deceiving me. But no, there it is: a young woman holding a cellphone toward the camera as "nüvifone" maker Garmin beckons viewers to "communicate while navigating."

"With my nüvifone, I can take calls from my friends while I'm driving to them," she says as she's shown piloting an SUV with two passengers, one of whom accepts an incoming call on a phone mounted to the windshield. (Note to Garmin: Hands-free is not brain-free.)

Maybe the most egregious aspect is the "Do not drive while distracted" disclaimer -- which pops up as the young woman is depicted driving while distracted.

Toyota wants you to know that it's here for you. And not just as a car maker, as the company explains in this spot, ironically entitled "Community."

Like GM before them, Toyota wants to make sure you realize just how much their company means to you. Here's our voice-over:

"We acknowledge you are coming to despise automobiles, but your nation depends on our industry for so many jobs that, even if we only manufactured cardboard cut-out cars that you had to carry down your few remaining walkable Main Streets, you'd still need us, America."

Accompanying the ad is the aggressively cloying and patently manipulative "Beyond Cars" web site -- which if nothing else should serve as an irresistible culture-jamming target. What do we see, Toyota? For starters, we see a world where your product doesn't kill people.

And you? What do you see?

Today was International Walk to School Day, and according to this Audi commercial, if you participated you're a big loser.

In all seriousness, this has to be one of the most obnoxious spots we've featured on Streetsblog. Basically, per Audi: If you take transit, you're a glutton for punishment; if you ride a bike, you're a hapless weenie.

But Audi owners? They're just like you: "trying to do their part" for the environment. Only they do it by driving a $30,000, fossil fuel-burning, CO2-emitting private automobile. Though it is "clean diesel" -- you can pretty much drink that stuff, right?

And judging by how the A3 is portrayed zipping along a curvy mountain road, leaving lesser vehicles in its wake, you'd best stay out of the way while Audi drivers go about saving the planet. Weenie.

According to Movieline (via New York Mag), Jay Leno's new prime time show, set to debut on NBC in September, hasn't exactly been generating a lot of buzz. But since nothing says funny like a grisly hit-and-run, this promo, co-starring Fred Armisen of "Saturday Night Live," should turn things around.

Though I'm pretty sure Leno has never gotten as much as a chuckle from me, I understand where the humor is supposed to be here. Yet for some reason the laughter isn't coming.

Somewhere, though, I imagine pedestrian-hater Robert Novak is yukking it up.

The government's Cash for Clunkers program officially begins today, but car dealers have been running ads like this one for a while already. They have to keep the public informed: Now you can trade in your old car and buy a brand-new SUV or pick-up truck with a hefty assist from Uncle Sam.

Here we have the government spending a billion dollars on about 250,000 vouchers for individual car buyers. Ostensibly, the purpose is to save some jobs and cut some emissions. Meanwhile, we're in the middle of a budget crisis affecting transit agencies serving 22 million Americans. Green jobs and emissions-reducing transportation are on the line. When DOT Secretary LaHood holds his press event on Monday touting the roll-out of Cash for Clunkers, someone should ask him how the Obama administration can justify this dubious car industry subsidy while hanging transit riders out to dry.

It's been a tumultuous week in more ways than one. We're going to leave it behind with a flashback, via Cycelicious, to the late 1970s, when Farrah Fawcett pedaled to promote her own line of shampoo. What helmet could contain that hair?

We couldn't find video of Ed McMahon or Michael Jackson on a bike -- though Michael did "Ease on Down the Road," of course, and Jonathan Maus busted out the moonwalk at yesterday's Portland tribute ride. If you know of anything else, please share it in the comments.

See you Monday.

We've published a couple of items lately on how noise from motorcycles and booming car stereo systems continue to diminish quality of life in Inwood and Washington Heights -- not that these problems are by any means unique to Upper Manhattan. The Queens-based NoiseOFF website has compiled a fascinating case against the manufacturers of car audio equipment, much of it drawn directly from product advertising, in which companies use slogans like "Turn it down? I don't think so." and "Be Loud. Be Obnoxious." to market their wares, mostly to young men with a misguided longing for attention and "respect" (I speak from experience here).

For insight into the twisted psychology of boom car ownership, and the perverse ways it is exploited by the car audio industry, get a load of this long-form ad from Pioneer (also featured on NoiseOFF), entitled "Disturb." Think that guy on the block cares that he's rattling windows and setting off car alarms? Hardly. More likely it's his reason for living.

The Ad Council has some new material in its campaign aimed at teenage drivers. In these spots, a comedic actor (Fred Willard in the ad above) in the backseat of a car with three teens cajoles or threatens the driver into slowing down or minding the road. The gist of the campaign, corresponding with the title of its web site, is "speak up or else" -- a name perhaps more suited to hard-hitting PSAs from overseas.