The automobile, along with a house and a garden, is【C1】______of the American

The automobile, along with a house and a garden, is an essential element of the American Dream.
   The average American household had 1.8 vehicles; each vehicle is driven an average of 10,000 miles per year at an average highway speed of 59 miles per hour. Most cars are used for daily commuting; less than 6% of the American workforce uses public transportation to get to work. Some of the country’s wonderful high-speed highways now carry three or more times the intended amount of traffic and twice a day mm into parking lots. San Francisco and Washington D.C win the prize for the two cities with the worst congestion.
   Even if suburban residents could walk to anything other than the house next door, they wouldn’t. Walking is un-American. Whenever possible, Americans drive and, if necessary, wait to get a parking place close to their destination. Congestion occurs as drivers circle the shops, looking for a parking place that’s closer to where they want to go.
   American cars are all air-conditioned and automatic. A stick shift (manual) is harder to drive and therefore considered sportier, more masculine. And continually pressing on the clutch can get tiresome if one drives 30 miles each day to work in heavy traffic, as many Americans do. An American man might buy a non-antomatic so his wife won’t be able to drive it—and Vice versa.
   A car is not just an American’s castle; it’s a suit of clothes, a haircut, a display of one’s personality to the world. Car owners not only select vehicles that reflect this, they also customize them in different ways. They paint the cars with flames, stripes or woodland scenes; they add mirrors and chrome and special headlights; they put shingle all over old school buses and turn them into holiday motor homes. More conventional drivers satisfy themselves with bumper stickers that reveal their educational background, political opinions, or marital status, form "Yale School of Law" to "If you are rich, I am single".