Peace vehicles: Peace or …?

Fortunately, I'm not a politician and can only express my personal opinion here on the blog. Therefore, I'd like to say a few words about the peace vehicles today.

In Hamburg, I always see the cars of a businessman driving around the neighborhood who had his cars wrapped with a peace lettering on the hood and a peace vehicle lettering on the side.

Is it a midlife crisis? Does he really want to stand out with his cars? The internet reveals: friedensfahrzeuge.de is behind the wrapping campaign. It's a campaign launched by an advertising woman and her husband, whose goal is to promote more peace in the world through the wrapping of cars. So far, so good.

As we all know, tastes differ and the style of the foiling is something that can be argued about. Personally, I find the look, which is deliberately intended to resemble police cars, awful. But that's just my opinion.

Much more importantly, the goal behind the look is not only to stand up for peace and attract attention, but also to play passive traffic police. The Hamburger Morgenpost newspaper of June 13, 2019 states: "Our foiling makes drivers think we are from the police, and they immediately stick to the speed limit and keep the necessary distance."

Peace vehicles: Peace or …? (ddp images)

Well, in my view, this does not mean commitment to peace, but rather that doctors, soldiers, police officers, volunteers and other specialists in crisis regions are directly involved in helping to improve conditions on the ground.

Or it also means a commitment when I attend a peaceful demonstration for a peace cause. Or when I take part in a political discussion on the topic of peace. Even if a citizen donates some money to aid organizations that are reputable and reliable within the scope of their personal means, that is a commitment to peace. There are of course other possibilities.

We live here in one of the safest countries in the world and not in Ukraine, Mali, Syria or Afghanistan, where conditions are shockingly bad in some places and people cannot live safely. This should be brought to attention again and again, dear large and wide-reaching media, so that even more people and organizations stand up for these places and their inhabitants.

If I now see that peace vehicles support political demonstrations with posters reading “NATO – the most dangerous mafia in the world”, then I would be ashamed to death as the driver of such a foiled car.

Peace vehicles: Peace or …? (ddp images)

The fact that the foiled peace vehicle at the event in question came from Tesla, of all companies, whose American CEO has recently been flying rockets into space, using international resources and has already completed contracts for the US military, brings a fair amount of irony to the matter - or makes the whole thing almost ridiculous when you consider the Tesla peace driver who thinks NATO is evil.

For it is thanks in part to this alliance that we in this country have enjoyed such security and such freedom for over 70 years, without which perhaps not only the drivers of peace vehicles would not own a car – or even a driver's license.

Every person has to know for themselves what they are committed to or how they present themselves as a busybody in traffic with their vehicle. I find the peace vehicles poorly packaged visually and the idea behind them - due to their presence in conjunction with, in my view, questionable posters and their status as self-perceived traffic controllers - unappealing.

By the way: I looked in vain for a modern cookie opt-in box on friedensfahrzeuge.de, as well as a tax and telephone number in the imprint. A peace vehicle like this apparently works without data protection and legally binding information.

But luckily I'm not a politician. In that sense: Peace...

© Photos: ddpimages.com (2), Priscilla Du Preez, Unsplash (1)