Full disclosure: I'm an urbanist. That means I have a well seasoned annoyance with the way cities are inefficiently designed to accommodate motor vehicles through the proliferation of freeways, parking lots, and residential sprawl, rather than designed to maximize human flourishing with walkable spaces, environmentally friendly green space, and more efficient forms of transport such as transit and bike lanes
That means in my day-to-day, I am able to notice the idiosyncrasies of poor city design in places where most people don't see. I've become familiar with the concept of "stroads," (part road, part street) and am now cursed with the ability to notice sites where some urban planner decided to maximize vehicle speeds with very active pedestrian traffic. I look at cul-de-sacs with disdain, including the one my parents live on, because I am now highly aware of the way they create circuitous routes between destinations so that they are only accessible by car and never by foot.
This is all to say that the dominance or default nature of cars, our most treasured form of transportation in the entire world, deserves a spotlight. Which is why I was particularly intrigued by an academic article by Patrick et. al (2024) Car harm: A global review of automobility’s harm to people and the environment. In a nutshell, the article aims to capture the totality of all the ways cars are harming society, from a global perspective.
The article points out global statistics and trends in vehicle violence via crashes, both accidental and (gulp) intentional. It also covers health problems from pollution and sedentariness.
"Accounting only for crashes and some forms of pollution, approximately 1.67 million people per year die as a result of automobility. This means that cars and automobility cause 1 out of 34 deaths (Global Burden of Disease Collaborative Network, 2020). We estimate that cars and the system of automobility have killed approximately 60 to 80 million people since their invention."
It also covers environmental degradation from emissions, resource extraction and, an urbanist favorite: atrocious forms of land use.
For each of these harms, the authors layout evidence as a meta-study gathering hundreds of other academic sources. It's great, but also, something isn’t terribly surprising about most of the trends laid out. Yes, we know that cars are dangerous, often killing drivers, passengers, and pedestrians. Yes, we also know that they are an environmental hazard, emitting tons of pollution and carbon. Where this article shines the most in my opinion is its highlight on global equity, and how automobility creates a global crisis in fairness.
As one example, auto violence affects the global youth. In terms of crashes, a US study found that children were eight times more likely to be killed when hit by an SUV rather than by a traditional car. According to the World Health association traffic crashes are the leading cause of death for children over 4 years old and adults under 30 years old. What this lays bare is the way certain demographics bear the brunt of injury.
"In terms of age, more than 700 children are killed in traffic crashes every day, and children and the elderly are more likely than other pedestrians to be killed in crashes (Zegeer and Bushell, 2012). Crashes are the leading cause of death for people aged 5 to 29 (World Health Organization, 2018)"
Crashes also disproportionately affect the world's poor:
"Economic status influences one’s risk of harm from motor vehicles. Despite lower levels of car ownership and fewer kilometres travelled, the economically poor are more likely than the economically wealthy to be killed in traffic crashes (Culver, 2018; Curl et al., 2018; Lucas et al., 2019; World Health Organization, 2018)."
And this, by proxy, means racial and ethnic minorities bear the brunt, either through a more subtle and unnoticeable outcomes such as more frequent crashes but also (and get this) not braking for Black pedestrians?!
"A US study found that people were less likely to stop their cars for Black pedestrians than for white pedestrians (Goddard et al., 2015)."
The article also mentions trucks and SUV's, which imbue a sense of safety, comfort, and spatial supremacy in relation to other drivers, and the fact they are getting more bloated and are killing more people.
Turning towards pollution, the study highlights that approximately 246,000 annual deaths are attributable to traffic related air-pollution. Again, this might not surprise people to know that your pollution is bad for human health, but more appalling is the question of who is exposed to these forms of pollution and in what manner.
The global poor and underprivileged tend to find themselves living either close to (or directly adjacent to) major traffic corridors. They are likely to be living close to freeways, built on unjust pretenses to enrich the lives of those living far away and able to afford cars:
"Economically wealthy people, especially the “kinetic elite” (Birtchnell and Caletrío, 2013; Sheller, 2018), cause more air pollution through excess driving, but this pollution is disproportionately inhaled by economically poor people and racially minoritised groups (Tessum et al., 2019; Wadud et al., 2022)."
Pollution is not only airborne. The study also highlights an area I forgot about: lead. Lead from fuel, paint but especially from the other harmful biproduct of cars: batteries . The study estimates that as many as 120,000 lead exposure deaths occur annually but again the injustice is not just in the statistic but in why this occurs. When lead batteries get disposed of especially here in the western world did anyone ever stop to think about where those batteries go? The developing world of course, where they are often disposed of and disassembled for parts and resources.
"Automobility in the wealthiest countries harms residents within those wealthy countries, but the consequences of automobility also spread across borders and harm populations with the fewest cars—those who benefit least from automobility. For example, depleted lead batteries from cars are dismantled mainly in places with few cars resulting in automotive lead exposure without car ownership (Ericson et al., 2017)."
Finally there is no greater realm in which car dependency and automobility wreak more havoc than housing. In general, heavy investment in automobile infrastructure is extremely expensive on society, amounting to generous subsidy strictly for those who drive at the expense of everybody else who doesn't.
"A study in Australia found that 10% of parking was covered by the motorist while the rest was externalised, and the motorist’s “out-of-pocket costs” were just one-sixth of the total trip cost (Glazebrook, 2009). A German study estimated the total lifetime cost of one car to be €600,000 to 957,000 of which €250,000 to 280,000 is paid for by government subsidies and higher prices for goods and services (G¨ossling et al., 2022). In the European Union, a study suggested that cars cost society €0.11 per kilometre while walking and cycling provide a positive benefit (mainly via health effects) of €0.37 and €0.18 per kilometre (G¨ossling et al., 2019)."
This is especially true if you consider the exorbitant amount of space dedicated to parking. If you think about it, we love to set aside space for cars to live in rent free, yet we refuse utilize that space to actually house people, often willing to actually pay rent to use that space.
"One off-street parking space consumes 25-33 m [squared] which is about the same size as the average living space per person in China, South Korea, or Spain and larger than the average living space per person in India, Brazil, Mexico, or Poland (International Energy Agency, 2019; Tubelo et al., 2021) Collectively these seven countries are home to 3.3 billion people, meaning that at least 40% of the global population lives in countries where the average living space per person is equal to or smaller than one parking space."
All of this tells us that there is a tacit preference for cars over people in society, in both the US but also the rest of the world. Automobility is a fairness crisis because it represents a resource-intensive maintenance of individual preference at the expense of the collective good, but mostly at the expense of society’s vulnerable.
What's more insidious about this individual preference is the way it masks driving as a fundamental privilege. aka, driving is only possible because not everybody is able to do it. The sooner we are able to realize this hopefully the sooner we're able to get out of our freaking car.
