"you're conveniently sidestepping my point"
I'm not convinced you've got one
"when people total up the "costs" of car culture, they tend to take the losses for granted, because most of the losses are publicly subsidized."
Not in Britain. Drivers are clobbered with a car-tax, and then a petrol tax (which is more than half of the cost of petrol), and then on top of that a congestion charges, parking fines and speeding fines. Drivers who cause accidents are fined, and liable to damages, that are met by insurance - another cost of motoring.
Even before you consider the non-market benefits of automobility, car drivers are subsidising public health care, paying more in car tax than is ever spent on roads, and sustaining a whole gamut of government spending.
"If I cut my car use 50%, and this reduces highway maintenance, health costs (e.g., reduced emphysema and asthma due to lower air pollution levels), and traffic fatalities, a thorough and careful assessment of the costs and benefits of existing patterns of auto use could easily demonstrate an economic benefit for workers if they reduce auto use."
No, you couldn't. Auto-use is for the most part synonymous with economic activity. Reduce car use and reduce attendance at work, the size of the leisure industry, the size of the retail market. By you're reckoning we would all be much richer if we never went out of doors at all!
As to this following, it really is just anti-Arab racist rubbish:
"Moreover, consider the larger geopolitical context. What are the costs of oil consumption as a subsidy for terrorist activities by organizations such as al-Qaeda that clearly benefit from oil consumption and profits? Let's face it: if we weren't so addicted to the auto culture in (especially) the U.S., less demand for Saudi oil would undermine funding of terrorist activities and thus provide significant benefits to workers (who have to pay with taxes and/or lives to fight terrorists)."
You are saying that you want to put all the millions of Pakistani, Palestinian, Yemeni, Egyptian and Algerian workers out of business to get back at Al-Qaeda? Wouldn't it have been more simple just to have stopped the CIA from training, arming and funding them back in the eighties?
You're argument is American economic nationalism, masquerading as concern for workers. -- James Heartfield The 'Death of the Subject' Explained is available at GBP11.00, plus GBP1.00 p&p from Publications, audacity.org, 8 College Close, Hackney, London, E9 6ER. Make cheques payable to 'Audacity Ltd'