Three home truths about the car that we just can’t accept
Ever since Henry Ford began marketing his mass-produced Ford Model T in 1908 with an ambitious low-price strategy to give every American an automobile, it has become one of our most important possessions.
The progressive ubiquity of the automobile has changed our way of life, our urban and rural landscapes, as well as taking the lives of millions of people due to traffic accidents or respiratory diseases. It has turned once elegant cities designed before its arrival into seething hellholes where pedestrians have taken second place, while poisoning the air we breathe.
And despite all this, the car remains one of our most sought-after possessions, a status symbol as well as a means of transport, one so many of us defend the right to use at all costs. Any restriction on the car is seen as the loss of some kind of sacred right to move around in this inefficient way, to park anywhere, or to pollute the air with impunity.
There are three home truths about the automobile, and each of them is likely to infuriate a large part of the population, to the point of swearing never to vote again for the politician who dares to mention them.
The first is that nobody should have the right to expel toxic pollutants where people live. Knowing what we know about the effects of pollution, all…
