Marketplace of Ideas Blog

Bergstrom Automotive held its first Bergstrom Drive for the Cure, a test driving event to raise money for breast cancer research, Friday and Saturday.

This is, I think, a great fundraiser. As opposed to the ____athons where participants solicit pledges for a certain amount of activity, this cost the participants only their time, and time spent test-driving nice new (or slightly used in some cases) cars strikes me as a pleasant use of one's time. For Bergstrom, it gets people in the door to look at what Bergstrom has to offer. And it raises money for breast cancer research. Win–win for all, right?

Apparently not, as one person posted at Marketplace Today:

I think there are better ways to raise money for cancer research. I was biking on Lynndale and JJ today and the traffic from this event was horrible, not to mention that many people were driving recklessly. I almost got run off the road, 5 cars in succession flew by me going at least 80 or 90 miles an hour and almost caused an accident, people were taking the corner of JJ and Mayflower too fast and one car looked like it was about to flip over, and several cars didn't even bother slowing down for the round about on Lynndale and cut off other cars coming from the other direction. I've never felt scared biking on these roads before today.
I don't think that wasting gas, causing pollution from increased traffic, and reckless driving making our streets unsafe is the best way to support such a great cause.

Since I drove Friday and not Saturday, I believe I was not one of those driving "recklessly." It was interesting to encounter, in one rural spot, a garbage truck backing up in the wrong lane, as well as, at the aforementioned Lynndale Drive/Outagamie County JJ roundabout, traffic impeded by an Outagamie County street sweeper.

Not to beat upon someone who disagrees with me, but this strikes me as criticism that misses the point. The point of an event like Bergstrom Drive for the Cure is to raise money for breast cancer research by soliciting those who might not otherwise contribute money for breast cancer research, or at least creating an activity to give people another avenue for donations.

Environmental criticisms of an event involving new (and thus cleaner) cars over parts of two days is just a weak argument. You might as well argue that Packer games are environmentally bad in that vehicles containing more than 70,000 people bring people to and from Lambeau Field 10 days a year. As far as safety issues go, car crashes occur every day, regardless of whether people are test-driving cars or not.

Looking for a second opinion, I talked to a breast cancer survivor of my acquaintance about the comment. (Those in the media assume that for every complaint we hear, some number of other people feel the same way but don't feel like expressing that point of view in public.) Her comment was that the complainer probably has never experienced breast cancer, or known someone who has, otherwise she wouldn't feel that way. (I don't know if she's right or not.)

This strikes me as similar to two past controversies — one in which I had a peripheral role, and one I observed.

About 20 years ago, a high school classmate of mine developed the Women of Wisconsin calendar, a swimsuit calendar featuring Wisconsin women who were, shall we say, pleasing to the eye. The Wisconsin State Journal did a story about this during the week. The following Saturday's State Journal included a letter from a woman in high dudgeon saying that swimsuit calendars objectify women.

I thought this was ridiculous, and wrote a letter to the editor picking apart her hyperactive feminism and excess liberalism that ran in the following Saturday's paper. After all, the women were getting paid to pose, and the business was creating not only a legal product, but a product the business was assuming would generate some profit for the business. My letter in turn generated a response from another woman who attacked the calendar from the opposite viewpoint — that showing that much skin (as in what a bikini doesn't cover up) was an offense to God.

A few years later, a restaurant that had just opened up in Madison decided to make a donation to a battered women's shelter. The donation generated a huge controversy (including within my own family) because of the restaurant that made the donation. They have locations in this area too: Hooters.

(For that matter, this could be said to be a similar reaction to people who complain about traffic and assorted noise around Packers or Wisconsin Timber Rattlers games. The benefits of the National Football League and minor league baseball to Northeast Wisconsin far outweigh the inconvenience each may occasionally create.)

Assuming the source of the donation isn't illegal, what difference does the source of the donation make? If participating in test drives doesn't interest you, don't participate. If you prefer walkathons or some other sort of activity, go for it.

It seems doubtful that charities are in such terrific financial condition that they have the luxury of being their definition of politically correct over choosing to accept, or reject, donations. Moreover, criticism of a fun charitable activity seems in bad taste.