Cars make us unhappy, unhealthy, selfish, mean spirited
and petty criminals, yet we’re addicted to them
I can hear you regressive libertarians who love our car dependent culture sputtering all kinds of protests already! But let’s just try to look at things unemotionally…..
Cars are expensive to buy, run and renew so they put a huge strain on household budgets unless, that is, you are comfortably well off. If public transport was at say the standard of many European cities or Greater London you may not even need to buy one but the deeper you live in commuter-land (outside of London) and particularly out in the countryside the more a car is all but a necessity in the UK due to our public transport being generally poor or even non-existent.
Cars make us insular and disconnected from our neighbours especially if we use them for even the shortest of journeys. That isolation from those around us can make us unhappy and even lonely. Why some of us even battle with our neighbours over scarce on-street parking spaces, literally driving a wedge between us and our neighbours.
Cars make us unwell because we don’t walk or cycle enough to keep us healthy thereby putting more strain on health services because we, in effect, we are making ourselves unwell. Pollution from petrol and diesel powered cars also makes us unwell, of course. Oddly, we kind of know we’re not getting enough exercise, due to excessive car use, as we go to gyms where we then pay to get the exercise we need. Indeed, we usually go to the gym in our cars, when often they are can be accessed via walking or cycling. However, our (at best) poor safe cycling networks often mitigate against cycle use and women in particular will be concerned about walking to a gym on dark winter evenings.
Cars make us selfish and mean spirited towards other road users whom some drivers see as getting in their way or slowing them down. Other road users doing the speed limit or less than it are a pain. Cyclists, horse riders and even pedestrians are often not seen as being vulnerable more important road users, which they are, but as a damn nuisances who should not be on or crossing our roads. When cycling I’ve been told to ‘get off the road and onto the pavement where I belong’ by enraged drivers thereby pressing me to cycle illegally.
Cars turn us into anti-social petty criminals because we break speed limits, drive without insurance/licenses, run red lights, some of us even steel cars. We also use them to show off and create danger for anyone around us. As an aside a chap I know seems to collect speeding tickets. On hearing he was to get his 2nd current one and not wanting to lose his licence he said that I’ll now be late for everything’, meaning that he usually plans to break speed limits and only the threat of losing his licence stops him from doing that!
Cars play to our worst instincts such as one-upmanship, by us seeking a car that’s better than someone else's. We use them as status symbols to emphasise wealth and perceived/desired standing in our community/amongst our friends. We copy those who buy whatever is the present most fashionable make and model so to ‘fit in’ and make us look like those that have ‘made it’.
Cars need huge amounts of public money to be spent on roads, ever more complex highway safety measures (because we drive so poorly), the use of extensive police, fire & rescue and NHS resources because so many of us are killed and injured on our roads each day. Insurance companies and solicitors do make a good living from car drivers though!
We readily accept that our roads are dangerous, indeed we don’t really think about it. However, we want the roads we live on/use and those used by our children on their way to school (assuming we’re not trying to make the next generation unfit/unwell by taking them everywhere by car) to be safe. At the same time we’re shocked when there’s a rail accident where someone is injured/killed as our railways are meant to be safe. We know rail accidents are extremely rare and that our roads are many, many, many times more dangerous but still we ignore the risks and go by car.
We like to abandon our cars pretty much wherever we want. On zag-zag lines, on dangerous bends, on double yellow lines, on pavements, on grass verges, across driveways etc. etc. and if we get a fine it’s the damn council/police chasing the poor old motorist when they should, in our view, be doing something more important. A motorist I know was recently heard to say ‘that policemen must have been hiding in the bushes’ as though he genuinely thought they did this to catch speeders!
We decide to live many miles away from where we work and/or where our children go to school because we can use the car, whilst we grumble about anything that gets in our way on the roads as we try to get to work and/or do the school run.
We kind of like our car dependent culture and new housing estates with no alternative ways of getting around, we may even protest if there’s a suggestion that a bus route goes down our road. We don’t need nasty smelly buses, anyway they’d have trouble getting past all our parked cars and may bump into them, not to mention they’d bring poor people into our estate.
We look upon buses and suburban trains as being for those who can’t afford a car and we resent money being put into public transport/safe cycle routes as it should be spent building more roads, even though we know that more roads means more traffic/more congestion. We dislike buses in particular as they keep stopping to pick the poor up or drop them off. Why can’t they run on roads where they don’t slow me up in my car?
We can be made to feel a little guilty about our cars contributing to environmental problems and global warming but well it’s up to others to get rid of their gas guzzlers, not us. We might spend a small fortune on an electric car but probably more because they’re currently a status symbol rather more than them being less polluting. But are they less damaging to the environment? We don’t really want to look at what gets destroyed by mining for the stuff they put in batteries; that’s the next generation’s problem to address.
Our politicians know all of the above of course and the many unscrupulous ones amongst them try to exploit our love affair with the car. They play to our car-centric prejudices. Our tabloid press is always there too, going on about the poor motorist being done down and we think ‘yes that’s right, that’s what I think too’!
An old saying still holds good, ‘your car is a convenience to you and an inconvenience to everyone else’.
The author is a driver, cyclist and pedestrian, in case you’re wondering, who favours significant investment in an integrated public transport system. He also acknowledges that cars are a tremendous asset for people with disabilities who otherwise would not be able to get around well at all. As an aside he used to drool over a Triumph Dolomite Sprint and he does enjoy watching Bangers & Cash on TV.
