Car blindness — Ignoring the true cost of cars

Alex Dyer

We love cars. Or do we?

Perhaps instead, we just have places to go and people to see and jobs to do. Perhaps they’re just another tool of modern life and have become familiar, habitual, routine.

Many don’t even like driving but have come to rely on cars due to decades of investment in infrastructure optimising their movement.

Compared to driving cars other travel options may seem less familiar, or under provisioned, and be less accessible or convenient. And many options for getting around are severely compromised by heavy flows of private heavy vehicles.

Are the externalities of driving too hidden, too remote and indirect, or too “someone else’s problem”? Will we look, or will we remain blind to it all?

This is the first in a series of four articles discussing car blindness. For cities around the world, more urgency is needed to enable sustainable, efficient, and healthy transport.