You’ve heard the expression “everything in moderation,” right? Well, everything but cars, apparently. Worldwide, there are some 1 billion of ‘em.
You’ve seen the images. Gridlocked freeways. My question: So when is enough, enough? How much more of this can we endure before it just gets to the point of our going overboard? Aren’t we there (at the limit), yet?
Apparently not, because above it all, the big push now is for electric cars. All well and good but in case you haven’t noticed, it’s still cars we’re talking about here.
California boasts of 1.5 million EVs on state roads. That’s out of a total 30 million in the Golden State, or 3 cars on average for every 4 Californians. Thirty million, meanwhile, is more than 10 percent of America’s some 283 million motor vehicles in all.
Something else:
A team from Swansea University and the University of the West of England in the United Kingdom issued a paper titled: Motonormativity: How social norms hide a major public health hazard. The research team in reporting their findings, said, in effect, that the environment in which we live not only does it push driving but at the same time plays down “the negative consequences” of that.
“These environments range from pelican crossings that make pedestrians wait for permission to cross the road while drivers automatically get a green light, to advertising and media that normalise and excuse antisocial and dangerous driving,” the research team expressed in the report.
A particular reason this matters, say the team, is that it’s not just the general public who have unconscious biases around motoring – it’s also politicians and members of the medical profession who influence public health. When a policymaker automatically assumes that traveling from one place to another is going to involve driving, they might harm public health by trying to make driving easier. In this case, their blind spot might create policies that increase air pollution and make travel more difficult and dangerous for all the people who move by other means – or who might like to.
Any and all of which could explain why active transportation methods like walking and biking and alternative means of automated travel as would be the case with public transit, often take a back seat or are perceived as being inferior mode selections. Moderating the amount of car travel could do wonders in terms of how we all move about and in terms of making mobility overall more economical, efficient or effective and fluid.
In the meantime, the researchers are appealing to the powers that be to be cognizant of these related “unconscious biases” and that rational transportation decision-making practices be put in place.
As explained in the corresponding press release, an independent organization was commissioned by the research team to conduct a survey of 2,157 respondents located across all of the UK. They were asked a number of different questions to which answers were provided.
There is more about this here.