A refreshingly clear academic article in the Journal of Transport Geography (vol. 115, February 2024) by five authors from the UK and one from Germany summarizes car-related harm, including crashes, pollution, land use, and injustices worldwide. Rob Delahanty of CityNerd has prepared a well-crafted video reporting on and illustrating the findings of the article.
Key points made in this piece include:
1 in 34 deaths are caused by cars and automobility, with 1,670,000 deaths annually.
Cars and automobility have killed 60-80 million people since their invention.
Car harm will continue unless policies change.
The totality of the abstract of Car harm: A global review of automobility’s harm to people and the environment is worth quoting:
Despite the widespread harm caused by cars and automobility, governments, corporations, and individuals continue to facilitate it by expanding roads, manufacturing larger vehicles, and subsidising parking, electric cars, and resource extraction. This literature review synthesises the negative consequences of automobility, or car harm, which we have grouped into four categories: violence, ill health, social injustice, and environmental damage. We find that, since their invention, cars and automobility have killed 60–80 million people and injured at least 2 billion. Currently, 1 in 34 deaths are caused by automobility. Cars have exacerbated social inequities and damaged ecosystems in every global region, including in remote car-free places. While some people benefit from automobility, nearly everyone—whether or not they drive—is harmed by it. Slowing automobility's violence and pollution will be impracticable without the replacement of policies that encourage car harm with policies that reduce it. To that end, the paper briefly summarises interventions that are ready for implementation.
This graphic highlights the harms of excessive automobility to the environment and human beings
The authors are Patrick Miner (a b), Barbara M. Smith (c d), Anant Jani (e f), Geraldine McNeill (b), Alfred Gathorne-Hardy (a b)
a) School of GeoSciences, The University of Edinburgh, Old College, South Bridge, EH8 9YL Edinburgh, UK
b) Global Academy of Agriculture and Food Systems, The University of Edinburgh, Old College, South Bridge, EH8 9YL Edinburgh, UK
c) Centre for Agroecology, Water, and Resilience, Coventry University, Priory Street, CV1 5FB Coventry, UK
d) Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, 1 Granary Square, N1C 4AA London, UK
e) Heidelberg Institute of Global Health, Heidelberg University, 1 Grabengasse, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
f) Somerville College, The University of Oxford, Wellington Square, OX1 2JD Oxford, UK