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SOCIETY
Carspiracy
We’ve been brainwashed into putting cars before everything else, even our own lives
In the UK alone there are 40,000 premature deaths every year as a result of pollution from cars. That’s almost four times as many people as are killed by passive smoking.
Yet in our car-centric culture, tens of thousands of deaths for the sake of convenience are seen as completely normal and unremarkable.
In a random trial of 2000 people, 75% agreed with the statement that “People shouldn’t smoke in highly populated areas where other people have to breathe their cigarette fumes.”
But only 17% agreed with the almost identical statement that “People shouldn’t drive in highly populated areas where other people have to breathe their car fumes.”
The trial was done by Professor Ian Walker, head of Psychology at Swansea University, who coined the term motonormativity.
Motonormativity is the unconscious cognitive bias in which the assumption is made that motor car ownership and use are unremarkable social norms. It’s this cognitive bias that sees nothing wrong with poisoning vast numbers of people by making them breathe car exhaust fumes.
It’s the same cognitive bias that sees bicycles as a greater threat to pedestrians than cars.
Cars kill 500 pedestrians in the UK every year, while bikes kill just two. Yet in a survey of pedestrians stopped at random in the street, more than half said they thought bikes were a greater threat to them than cars.
“Cars come first,” says Professor Walker. “Look at how streets are designed. They’re built so the car goes first and the pedestrian waits or gets out of the way.”
This is painfully and infuriatingly apparent, even in my local area.
On the road where I live, there are two nearby pedestrian crossings. It’s common to wait for a full minute or more after pressing the button to cross because the sensors won’t show the green man until all the cars have passed and the road is clear (which completely negates the point of having a pedestrian crossing).
