by Donald L. Gibbon

The back cover of the Nov/Dec 2007 issue of Sierra Magazine headlines “Are
You Tired of Being Hit Over the Head by a Lobbyist With Your Own Club?”
The Club they’re referring to is the AAA. I’ve been a member of Triple-A
for 23 years. I’ve valued their services: opening my locked car, starting
my car, fixing my wife’s flats, providing maps and passports. But… and
here’s the big BUT… over ten years ago I noticed in their obnoxious
ad-filled industrial-tourism newspaper that they were lobbying Congress on
behalf of their members, claiming that 500,000 members (or however many of
us there were) supported their lobbyists’ positions. And those positions
were DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSED to mine!

“Hey,” I wrote the president, Richard Hamilton, at the time, if I remember
correctly. “I’m a member of this organization. You never asked me what I
wanted you to say in my behalf. When is the Membership Meeting at which I
get to express my opinions?” They never wrote back, in spite of my
repeated attempts to get a conversation going. And they NEVER hold
membership meetings, never conduct surveys to discover what the members
want.

What do they lobby for? First off, they have consistently supported road
construction (the Mon-Fayette tollway, for example), to the exclusion of
mass transit. They have consistently opposed increased efficiency
standards. They have completely ignored any connection between cars and
air pollution. In other words, they are working to defeat some of the
Sierra Club’s major goals. They appear to be in bed with the retrenched
branches of the automobile industry, the part that’s driven Detroit into
the ground.

Now, as the ad says on the back of Sierra Magazine, there’s an
alternative: the Better World Club. It provides virtually all the same
services that AAA does, with a number of attractive supplements. It may
not be quite as convenient as AAA is to those of us living in Pittsburgh’s
East End (i.e. Motor Square is only a half mile away from my home). But I
want to break the connection between me and the corporatocracy. It feels
yucky to be served by someone who is totally against some of my dearest
goals. I’ve resigned my AAA membership. I’m giving Better World Club a
try. Think about it… after all, it’s really just an insurance policy.
If they service your claims well and do good in other ways, why not? And
they’ll cover your bike, to boot!!