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, i.e. road vehicles per 1,000 inhabitants:
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Societal effects of cars encompass various effects on human activities and culture. Since the start of the twentieth century, the role of has become highly important, though controversial. They are used throughout the world and have become the most popular mode of transport in many of the more developed countries. In developing countries cars are fewer and the effects of the car on society are less visible but still significant. The spread of cars built upon earlier changes in transport brought by railways and Bike boom. They introduced sweeping changes in employment patterns, social interactions, infrastructure and the distribution of goods.
Automobiles provide easier, more comfortable access to remote places and mobility, helping people to geographically widen their social and economic interactions. Adverse effects of the car on everyday life are also significant. The introduction of the mass production car represented a revolution in industry and convenience, creating job demand and tax revenue. The resulting mobility transition also brought severe consequences to the society and to the environment.
The modern negative associations with heavy automotive use include the use of non-renewable fuels, a dramatic increase in the rate of accidental death, the disconnection of Parochialism, the decrease of Local purchasing, the rise in cardiovascular diseases, the emission of air pollution and noise pollution, the emission of , generation of urban sprawl and traffic, segregation of pedestrians and other active mobility means of transport, a shrinking Rail transport, urban decay, and the Car costs of private transport.
Since many people do not have cars, the resulting inequality intensifies structural inequalities and causes irreparable damage to the environment. Hence, neglecting the negative externalities of private automobility is irresponsible, and replacing combustion engine vehicles with Electric vehicle is merely a strategy to lose more slowly from social and environmental points of view.
When the motor age arrived in Western countries at the beginning of the 20th century, many conservative intellectuals opposed the increase in motor traffic on the roads. The new vehicles removed space for pedestrians and made walking more dangerous, with car collisions becoming a major cause of pedestrian deaths.
W.S. Gilbert, the famous British librettist, wrote to The Times on 3 June 1903:
Ten years later, Alfred Godley wrote a more elaborate protest, "The Motor Bus", a poem which cleverly combined a lesson in Latin grammar with an expression of distaste for the new form of motor transport.
Examples of car access issues in underdeveloped countries include the paving of Mexican Federal Highway 1 through Baja California, completing the connection of Cabo San Lucas to California. In Madagascar, about 30% of the population does not have access to reliable all-weather roads. In China in 2003, 184 towns and 54,000 villages had no motor road (or roads at all).
Certain developments in retail are partially due to car use, such as supermarket growth, drive-thru fast food purchasing, and gasoline station grocery shopping as well.
In addition to money for roadway construction, car use was also encouraged in many places through new zoning laws that required any new business to construct a certain amount of parking based on the size and type of facility. This policy succeeded in creating many free parking spaces, with business places further back from the road. The resulting less dense settlements were better suited to cars, and less well to carless living.
Retail parks attract revenue away from High Street and town centres. Many new and suburbs did not install , making pedestrian access dangerous. This had the effect of encouraging people to drive, even for short trips that might have been walkable, thus increasing and solidifying Car dependency. Opportunities for employment, activities, and housing widened for users, and narrowed for the carless.
From the early 20th century until after WWII, the roadster constituted most adult bicycles sold in the UK and in many parts of the British Empire. For many years after the advent of the motorcycle and automobile, they remained a primary means of adult transport.
Another change brought about by the car is that modern urban pedestrians must be more alert than their ancestors. In the past, a pedestrian had to worry about relatively slow-moving hazards such as streetcars and horses. With the proliferation of the car, a pedestrian has to anticipate automobiles traveling at high speeds that can cause death or serious injury. Previous traffic deaths were usually due to horses escaping control.
According to many social scientists, the loss of pedestrian-scale villages has also disconnected communities. Many people in developed countries have less contact with their neighbors and rarely walk unless they value walking.
Kenneth R. Schneider in Autokind vs Mankind (1971) called for a war against the automobile, derided it for being a destroyer of cities, and likened its proliferation to a disease. In combination with his second book On the Nature of Cities (1979), he called for a struggle to halt and partially reverse negative developments in transportation, although he was largely ignored at the time. Renowned social critic Vance Packard in A Nation of Strangers (1972) blamed the geographic mobility enabled by the auto for loneliness and social isolation. Automobile sales peaked in 1973, at 14.6 million units sold, and were not to reach comparable levels for another decade. The 1973 Arab-Israeli War was followed by the OPEC oil embargo, leading to an explosion of prices, long queues at filling stations, and talks of rationing fuel.
While it may appear clear, in retrospect, that the automotive/suburban culture would continue to persist, as it did in the 1950s and 1960s, no such certainty existed at the time when British architect Martin Pawley authored his seminal work, The Private Future (1973). Pawley called the automobile "the shibboleth of privatisation; the symbol and the actuality of withdrawal from the community" and perceived that, in spite of its momentary misfortunes, its dominance in North American society would continue. The car was a private world that allowed for fantasy and escape, and Pawley forecasted that it would grow in size, and in technological capacities. He saw no pathology in consumer behavior grounded in freedom of expression.
Improved transport accelerated the outward growth of cities and the development of beyond an earlier era's . Until the advent of the car, lived either close to the factory or in high-density communities farther away, connected to the factory by streetcar or Rail transport. The car and the federal subsidies for roads and suburban development that supported car culture allowed people to live in low density even farther from the city center and integrated city neighborhoods. Industrial suburbs being few, due in part to single use zoning, they created few local jobs and residents commuted longer distances to work each day as the suburbs continued to expand.
As other vehicles had been, cars were incorporated into artworks including music, books and movies. Between 1905 and 1908, more than 120 songs were written in which the automobile was the subject. Although authors such as Booth Tarkington decried the automobile age in books including The Magnificent Ambersons (1918), novels celebrating the political effects of motorization included Free Air (1919) by Sinclair Lewis, which followed in the tracks of earlier bicycle touring novels. Some early 20th century experts doubted the safety and suitability of allowing female automobilists. Dorothy Levitt was among those who laid such concerns to rest, so much so that a century later there was only one country where women were forbidden to drive. Where 19th-century mass media had made heroes of Casey Jones, Allan Pinkerton and other stalwart protectors of public transport, new offered heroes who found freedom and equality, rather than duty and hierarchy, on the open road.
George Monbiot writes that widespread car culture has shifted voters' preferences to the right-wing of the political spectrum, and thinks that car culture has contributed to an increase in individualism and fewer social interactions between members of different socioeconomic classes. The American Motor League had promoted the making of more and better cars since the early days of the car, and the American Automobile Association joined the good roads movement begun during the earlier bicycle craze; when manufacturers and petroleum fuel suppliers were well established, they also joined construction contractors in lobbying governments to build public roads.
As tourism became motorized, individuals, families and small groups were able to vacation in distant locations such as . Roads including the Blue Ridge Parkway were built specifically to help the urban masses experience natural scenery previously seen only by a few. Cheap restaurants and appeared on favorite routes and provided wages for locals who were reluctant to join the trend to rural depopulation.
One major aspect of the hobby is collecting. Cars, especially Classic car, are appreciated by their owners as having aesthetic, recreational and historic value. Such demand generates investment potential and allows some cars to command extraordinarily high prices and become financial instruments in their own right.
A second major aspect of the car hobby is vehicle modification, as many car enthusiasts modify their cars to achieve performance improvements or visual enhancements. Many subcultures exist within this segment of the car hobby, for example, those building their own custom vehicles, primarily appearance-based on original examples or reproductions of pre-1948 US car market designs and similar designs from the World War II era and earlier from elsewhere in the world, are known as , while those who believe cars should stay true to their original designs and not be modified are known as "".
In addition, motorsport (both professional and amateur) as well as casual driving events, where enthusiasts from around the world gather to drive and display their cars, are important pillars of the car hobby as well. Notable examples of such events are the annual Mille Miglia classic car rally and the Gumball 3000 supercar race.
Many have been set up to facilitate social interactions and companionships amongst those who take pride in owning, maintaining, driving and showing their cars. Many prestigious social events around the world today are centered around the hobby, a notable example is the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance classic car show.
It is estimated that motor vehicle collisions caused the death of around 60 million people during the 20th century around the same number of World War II casualties. Just in 2010 alone, 1.23 million people were killed due to traffic collisions.
Notwithstanding the high number of fatalities, the trend of motor vehicle collision is showing a decrease. Road toll figures in developed nations show that car collision fatalities have declined since 1980. Japan is an extreme example, with road deaths decreasing to 5,115 in 2008, which is 25% of the 1970 rate per capita and 17% of the 1970 rate per vehicle distance travelled. In 2008, for the first time, more pedestrians than vehicle occupants were killed in Japan by cars. Pedestrians become chief victims of road accident deaths in 2008 Besides improving general road conditions like lighting and separated walkways, Japan has been installing intelligent transportation system technology such as stalled-car monitors to avoid crashes.
In developing nations, statistics may be grossly inaccurate or hard to get. Some nations have not significantly reduced the total death rate, which stands at 12,000 in Thailand in 2007, for example. In the United States, twenty-eight states had reductions in the number of automobile crash fatalities between 2005 and 2006. People Killed in Motor Vehicle Crashes, by State, 2005-2006 55% of vehicle occupants 16 years or older in 2006 were not using seat belts when they crashed. Road fatality trends tend to follow Smeed's law, an empirical schema that correlates increased fatality rates per capita with traffic congestion.
made by the Delft University and which is the main reference in European Union for assessing the Externality of cars, the main external costs of driving a car are:
Transport is a major land use, leaving less land available for other purposes. Space for cars create barriers by using that land. Lack of sidewalks and bike paths makes a shared space road, with the automobile the only possible means of transportation. It may look like a minor problem initially but in the long run, it poses a threat to children and the elderly.
Cars also contribute to pollution of air and water. Though a horse produces more waste, cars are cheaper, thus far more numerous in urban areas than horses ever were. Emissions of harmful gases like carbon monoxide, ozone, carbon dioxide, benzene and particulate matter can damage living organisms and the environment. The emissions from cars cause disabilities, respiratory diseases, and ozone depletion. Noise pollution from cars can also potentially result in hearing disabilities, headaches, and stress to those frequently exposed to it.
In countries such as the United States the infrastructure that makes car use possible, such as highways, roads and parking lots is funded by the government and supported through zoning and construction requirements. The High Cost of Free Parking by Donald C. Shoup Fuel taxes in the United States cover about 60% of highway construction and repair costs, but little of the cost to construct or repair local roads.Graph based on data from Transportation for Livable Cities By Vukan R. Vuchic p. 76. 1999. MacKenzie, J.J., R.C. Dower, and D.D.T. Chen. 1992. The Going Rate: What It Really Costs to Drive. Washington, DC: World Resources Institute. Payments by motor-vehicle users fall short of government expenditures tied to motor-vehicle use by 20–70 cents per gallon of gas. Zoning laws in many areas require that large, free parking lots accompany any new buildings. Municipal parking lots are often free or do not charge a market rate. Hence, the cost of driving a car in the US is subsidized, supported by businesses and the government who cover the cost of roads and parking. This is in addition to other external costs car users do not pay like accidents or pollution. Even in countries with higher gas taxes like Germany motorists do not fully pay for the external costs they create.
This government support of the automobile through subsidies for infrastructure, the cost of highway patrol enforcement, recovering stolen cars, and many other factors makes public transport a less economically competitive choice for commuters when considering out-of-pocket expenses. Consumers often make choices based on those costs, and underestimate the indirect costs of car ownership, insurance and maintenance. However, globally and in some US cities, tolls and parking fees partially offset these heavy subsidies for driving. Transportation planning policy advocates often support tolls, increased fuel taxes, congestion pricing and market-rate pricing for municipal parking as a means of balancing car use in urban centers with more efficient modes such as buses and trains.
When cities charge market rates for parking, and when bridges and tunnels are tolled, driving becomes less competitive in terms of out-of-pocket costs. When municipal parking is underpriced and roads are not tolled, most of the cost of vehicle usage is paid for by general government revenue, a subsidy for motor vehicle use. The size of this subsidy dwarfs the federal, state, and local subsidies for the maintenance of infrastructure and discounted fares for public transportation.
By contrast, although there are environmental and social costs for rail, there is a very small footprint.
Walking or cycling often have net positive effects on society as they help reduce health costs and produce virtually no pollution.
A study attempted to quantify the costs of cars (i.e. of car-use and related decisions and activity such as production and transport/infrastructure policy) in conventional currency, finding that the total lifetime cost of cars in Germany is between 0.6 and 1.0 million euros with the share of this cost born by society being between 41% (€4674 per year) and 29% (€5273 per year). This suggests that cars consume "a large share of disposable income", creating "complexities in perceptions of transport costs, the economic viability of alternative transport modes, or the justification of taxes".
nevertheless the typical motorist underestimates this fixed cost by a big margin, or even ignores it altogether.
In the United States, out of pocket expenses for car ownership can vary considerably based on the state in which you live. In 2013, annual car ownership costs including repair, insurance, gas and taxes were highest in Georgia ($4,233) and lowest in Oregon ($2,024) with a national average of $3,201. Car-ownership costs by state. Retrieved 22 August 2013 Furthermore, the IRS considers, for tax deduction calculations, that the automobile has a total cost for drivers in the US, of US$0.55/mile, around 0.26 EUR/km. Data provided by the American Automobile Association indicates that the cost of ownership for an automobile in the United States is rising about 2% per year. Which state is the most expensive for driving?. Retrieved 22 August 2013 2013 data provided by the Canadian Automobile Association concludes that the cost of ownership for a compact car in Canada, including depreciation, insurance, borrowing costs, maintenance, licensing, etc. was CA $9500 per year, or about US$7300.
Alternatives:
Planning response:
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