Why not get rid of cars altogether?
We've made our world for cars. The automobile rules our cities, destroys our planet, poisons our air, and kills millions — every single year. Why have we built our lives around them?
We tend to think of ourselves as the uncontested rulers of this planet, the pinnacle of evolution, the culmination of all development. Yet imagine an extraterrestrial civilization gazing down upon us. What would they conclude? Who rules this planet?
It’s cars. The answer is cars. We’ve built our cities to accommodate the automobile; we’ve flattened, destructed, and asphalted as much of our world as possible; we’ve killed off species, ecosystems, life; we’re changing the global climate, and we tolerate the death of millions. And for what? For comfort, convenience, and growth, of course, and so you can get to work.
Let us take a closer look at the top of the earth’s food chain. Those massive contraptions of steel we call cars.
Invasion
Do me a favor. Please, stand up, right now and go to your window. Count the cars. How many do you see?
I live on a side street, in a city of 300,000, and came up with a rather impressive number of 51. The number of people I saw at the same time was… three. I’m sure many, if not most of you, came up with an even higher number of cars. Congratulations to those who could not see any; I envy you.
How many cars are there on the whole planet? A difficult question, surprisingly, to which we don’t know the precise answer. But, there are some educated guesses and studies.
According to one such estimate, in 2018, there were approximately 1.4 billion cars, trucks, and buses worldwide. That number has likely increased by a couple of hundred million since then. If you’d park them in a row, with an assumed average length of 4.5 meters per car, the line would go 480 times around the world.
Some numbers:1
1976: 342 million vehicles
1996: 670 million vehicles
2018: 1.4 billion vehicles
2036: 2.8 billion vehicles (projected, if the rate of growth remains constant)
The nation with the most cars per capita is, and how could it not be, the United States. In 2020, there were around 276 million automobiles in the US, 0.83 per person.2 There will be more now. In 2017, however, after many years of catching up, China managed to overtake the US as the country with the most cars in total. There are now more than 300 million cars in China, with the number likely to increase dramatically in the coming years. That's still a far cry from the US numbers per capita. If there's one thing Americans are particularly good at, it's consumption.
The following graph illustrates the total number of vehicles produced. China is in the top spot now:
By all definitions, cars are an invasive species. From the 19th century to the present, the global car population grew from zero to 1.4 billion. Impressive by all biological standards. And, much like other fast-growing pests, cars have drastically altered their environments and killed off countless other creatures. Absurdly enough, humans willingly reduce their own living space to accommodate the proliferation of the automobile. This is where the evolutionary analogy falls short. There’s just no rational explanation for such behavior.
Cities for cars
Cars are ubiquitous to a degree we don’t even notice anymore. They whiz around us, day in, day out, with inhuman speed and Newtonian force, consuming oil, poisoning the air. Our cities are built around them, with roads and parking lots taking up a majority of urban space. Humans have to contend themselves with narrow sidewalks (if even that), and are dependent on traffic lights and the goodwill of drivers to make it to that fabled other side. That works, more or less, until it doesn’t and someone dies. We are intruders to the empire of steel and asphalt.
Open Google Maps and explore your hometown or any larger city. The automobile’s dominance will be unmistakable. They shoot through our cities at speeds of 50 kph, reaching more than 100 kph on highways (in Europe that is). They’re getting larger and larger, the forces released upon collision multiplying. We must be careful not to disturb them and came up with comprehensive sets of rules to avoid getting in their way. We learn those from the day we’re born, for not adhering may result in death.
Cycling is for the brave. Trust me when I say that I speak from experience. I, too, have stared death in the eyes multiple times, as three-ton-behemoths rushed past me with centimeters to spare, only to repeat the process after I’ve overtaken them at the intersection. You see, cars spend the majority of their time in standstill, paralyzed by their huge numbers. According to a report from the RAC Foundation, the average car is driven for just 4% of its existence.3 For the rest of the time, the car is parked — sleeping, plastering our cities.
Back to cycling: there are, of course, efforts to build better infrastructure and increase bicycle traffic (separate bike lanes and zones, demarcations, and so on), but in most cities, cyclists still have to balance their way around cars and hope to not be overlooked or anger a car driver somehow. Some cities (Amsterdam) are better than others (most US cities) in that regard.
In short, we’ve sacrificed our cities, living space, and well-being for the sake of effortless mobility and convenience. Was it worth it?
Collateral damage
Besides the immense death and destruction cars and their accompanying infrastructure impose upon the non-human living world (loss of forests and other natural habitats, ecosystem collapse, pollution, climate-changing emissions, and so on), they also kill, quite literally, millions of people every year.
Here are some figures from the World Health Organization (WHO):4
‘Road traffic crashes result in the deaths of approximately 1.3 million people around the world each year and leave between 20 and 50 million people with non-fatal injuries. More than half of all road traffic deaths and injuries involve vulnerable road users, such as pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists and their passengers.’
‘The young are particularly vulnerable on the world’s roads and road traffic injuries are the leading cause of death for children and young adults aged 5–29.’
And for the capitalists among you (though I have no idea what you’re doing here):
‘Road traffic crashes cost most countries 3% of their gross domestic product.’
"Why so many children?" you may ask. The WHO says this:5
‘Children are at risk for road traffic injuries for a number of reasons. Younger children are limited by their physical, cognitive and social development, making them more vulnerable in road traffic than adults. Because of their small stature, it can be difficult for children to see surrounding traffic and for drivers and others to see them. In addition if they are involved in a road traffic crash, their softer heads make them more susceptible to serious head injury than adults.’
The WHO even has a terrifying live ticker, that counts road traffic deaths in real time. Every 24 seconds, someone on this planet dies on the roads.
In the US, there were 42,939 motor vehicle deaths in 2021, the highest number since 2005.6 An increase likely related to the new trend of super-SUVs and highly distracted driving. In general, though, the number of road traffic deaths is staying relatively constant, despite the increasing total number of cars:
Automobiles did become significantly safer over the years (particularly for their passengers, not so much for pedestrians), and, still, 1.3 million people die every year. It’s difficult to imagine how many people died, say, fifty years ago, when cars were significantly less safe, and how many died in the 20th and 21st centuries overall. Cars appear among the most dangerous predators to humans, beaten only by mosquitos and other humans.
1.3 million deaths. Every single year.
Yet despite the staggering numbers, no one is talking about this pandemic. There’s no news coverage, no dramatic speeches from politicians, no conspiracy theories, nothing. We accept these 1.3 million deaths as if they were unpreventable, as if they were nothing. Under capitalism, comfort goes above human lives. Cars are like a force of nature: they’ve always been there. You are but collateral damage.
Doctrine of convenience
The automobile changed the world and enabled our current levels of empty prosperity and luxury (in the Western world, that is). A world without cars appears preposterous, unthinkable — and under a system entirely dedicated to profit and growth, it is.
You need a car to get to your job, you need one to get your children to school, to care for your elderly parents, who live on the other side of the city, or somewhere else altogether. You need it for grocery shopping, and to get anywhere at all, because public transport is underdeveloped and you’re made to believe that it’s for poor people. You need your car as much as a status symbol as you do for convenience. No one, no one at all, needs an SUV in the city, and no one, absolutely anywhere, needs a luxury car.
The average American household owns 1.88 vehicles.7 Two cars for two people, both working, both struggling, perhaps, a large portion of income spent on maintenance and gas to... get to work.
Car culture is directly and inextricably linked to the capitalist doctrines of individualism, consumerism, and alienation/isolation. The design of our cities, which makes alternatives impossible, reflects that. As long as public transport is not massively expanded, as long as cities are designed for cars, people will prefer driving and suffocating in traffic.
Deaths caused by traffic accidents appear, in some ways, intangible and remote. News outlets merely report on major traffic accidents, so most deaths go unnoticed — because they are so common and ingrained in our society. And it’s always others who die; nothing can happen to you as long as you’re careful right? It’s like with cancer or any other public health issue: as long as it doesn’t concern them directly, most people simply do not care.
Incremental change vs. radical upheaval
So, how do we overcome our addiction to cars? What are the alternatives and prospects for the future? Politicians and corporate lobbyists (same thing, really) tell us electric vehicles are the solution. The solution to what, exactly?
Climate change? — No. Electric cars aren’t much better in that regard than conventional ones. As long as growth is our leading ideology, nothing can stop climate change and the collapse of the earth’s ecosystems. Also: consider the Jevons paradox. Every increase in energy efficiency will be used and abused to make, produce, consume more.
We’ve talked about capitalism’s distortion of technological development here:
Destruction of the environment? — No. Children in lithium mines, poisonous batteries.
Unlivable, hideous cities? — No. The total number of cars is growing with no end in sight.
Deaths? — No.
Pollution and air quality? — A little bit, perhaps. Under certain circumstances. Incremental change.
The addiction persists.
Make no mistake: the purpose of electric cars is to save the automobile industry, not the planet. Car sales have stagnated in the West, and corporations had to come up with ways of increasing sales. So, they convince people to get rid of their perfectly functioning current vehicles and buy new and shiny ones. Buy, consume, discard, buy again. Climate change is the perfect vehicle (pun intended) to deliver the message.
The only way to benefit the environment would be to stop driving altogether, reduce the number of cars, create livable cities, massively expand public transportation, and encourage people to walk. Just fucking walk. Walking is better for your health and long-term happiness than any gym subscription or diet pill will ever be.
Don’t get me started on self-driving cars. The day my car decides to return to the dealership because I haven’t paid my last loan rate, trapping me inside, is the day Cyberpunk dystopia will finally be fully upon us.
So, what can be done, indeed? Yeah, not much except collapsing capitalism and building anew. Getting out of your comfort zone, walking, exercising, revolting. The convenience is killing you, depressing you, destroying your life, and robbing you of all meaning. There are solutions, but they’ll require something most people are not prepared to do: giving up even the slightest amount of physical comfort, and thinking collectively. Thinking of the future.
I’m author, writer, and activist Antonio Melonio, the creator of Beneath the Pavement. If you enjoyed this piece, please consider becoming a paid subscriber here on Substack or over on Patreon. It’s the best way to support Beneath the Pavement and help me put out more and higher-quality content.
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How Many Cars are There in the World? | CarsGuide
Number of U.S. Aircraft, Vehicles, Vessels, and Other Conveyances | Bureau of Transportation Statistics
Cars parked 23 hours a day | RAC Foundation
Road safety | WHO
Fatalistic as it may sound to say, it ain't gonna happen. It is far too massive of a collective action problem, and thus it becomes unserious for practical purposes.