Car harm: A global review of automobility's harm to people and the environment
2024/02/01 by Patrick Miner, Barbara M. Smith, Barbara Smith +4 · 7 voices · 150 citations
Engineering · Environmental Science · Medicine · Social Sciences · #Air Quality and Health Impacts #Business #Environmental health #Harm #Injustice #Medicine #Poison control #Political science #Traffic and Road Safety #Urban Transport and Accessibility
paper · doi:10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2024.103817
published in Journal of Transport Geography 115, 103817 (Elsevier BV)
openalex publication_date 2024/02/01 · openalex created_date 2024/02/18 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/02
Abstract
Despite the widespread harm caused by cars and automobility, governments, corporations, and individuals continue to facilitate it by expanding roads, manufacturing larger vehicles, and subsidising parking, electric cars, and resource extraction. This literature review synthesises the negative consequences of automobility, or car harm, which we have grouped into four categories: violence, ill health, social injustice, and environmental damage. We find that, since their invention, cars and automobility have killed 60–80 million people and injured at least 2 billion. Currently, 1 in 34 deaths are caused by automobility. Cars have exacerbated social inequities and damaged ecosystems in every global region, including in remote car-free places. While some people benefit from automobility, nearly everyone—whether or not they drive—is harmed by it. Slowing automobility's violence and pollution will be impracticable without the replacement of policies that encourage car harm with policies that reduce it. To that end, the paper briefly summarises interventions that are ready for implementation.
Citations
Cited by
- Why do cars get a free ride? The social-ecological roots of motonormativity
- Car ownership through the parenting journey and beyond
- The road lobby and unhealthy transport policy discourse in Aotearoa New Zealand: A framing analysis
- Transport and quality of life: The car and its link to subjective well-being, health, and life domains
- Metros reduce car use in European cities but trams do not
- Curbing the car or charging at the curb?
- Beyond motonormative punishment: On road safety as environmental regulation
- Car dependence in England and Wales: spatial inequalities and implications for a just transition
- Automobility, planet, and humans: Pathways linking car use to environmental, societal, and individual well-being
- Urban highways are barriers to social ties
- Interventions to increase active travel: A systematic review
- Reducing urban speed limits decreases work-related traffic injury severity: Evidence from Santiago, Chile
- Mobility Justice and the Big Ride for Palestine
- Calling for a more coherent policy response to driving harm
- The role of automobility engagement for car use and car use reduction intentions in Germany
- Shaping the future of cycling safety: A research agenda for the next two decades
- Mobility cultures as bundle of powerful practices
- How linguistic patterns obscure responsibility in newspaper coverage of traffic crashes in German-speaking countries: an interdisciplinary study
- Reducing car dependence: benefits, strategies, unintended consequences, and future directions of post-car urban transitions
- Strategic partnership for Health in All Policies and sustainable transport in Scotland: a case study evaluation
- A Comprehensive Review of Unobtrusive Biosensing in Intelligent Vehicles: Sensors, Algorithms, and Integration Challenges. [europepmc]
- HELMET (HEaLth iMpact of E-bikes and e-scooTers) study: Data collection methods and information gathered for the evaluation of the introduction of share-hire schemes. [europepmc]
- Improving health and preventing cancer through a better transport system in Aotearoa/New Zealand. [europepmc]
- Determining the minimum urban fleet for a valet style autonomous mobility service using real trip data. [europepmc]
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- Parking and Public Health. [europepmc]
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Discussions
- Interesting-looking review paper on the harm that cars cause to people and the environment, finding that "currently, 1 in 34 deaths are caused by automobility" doi.org/10.1016/j.jt... [bsky, 77 points, 4 comments]
- New study on "car harm": "Since their invention, cars ... have killed 60–80 million people and injured at least 2 billion." "Currently, 1 in 34 deaths are caused by [cars]." doi.org/10.1016/j.jt... [bsky, 55 points, 0 comments]
- Car harm: A global review of automobility's harm to people and the environment doi.org/10.1016/j.jt... [bsky, 39 points, 0 comments]
- NL did it just for their kids, so never assume it's not very complicit & one of the most hypocritical countries > wealthy countries with reputations for widespread cycling and few cars, such as the N [bsky, 12 points, 1 comments]
- "We find that, since their invention, cars and automobility have killed 60–80 million people and injured at least 2 billion. Currently, 1 in 34 deaths are caused by automobility." Powerful new paper [bsky, 4 points, 0 comments]
- The article was composed by Patrick Miner, Barbara M Smith, Anant Jani, Geraldine McNeil, and Alfred Gathorne-Hardy. It can be found here: doi.org/10.1016/j.jt... #urbanism #fuckcars [bsky, 1 points, 1 comments]
- @sixtus Global sind es bisher 60 bis 80 Millionen Tote durch Autos. Studie dazu hier: "Car harm: A global review of automobility's harm to people and the environment" https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtra [bsky, 1 points, 0 comments]
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- Automobility, planet, and humans: Pathways linking car use to environmental, societal, and individual well-being
- Calling for a more coherent policy response to driving harm
- Death and the Car: On (Auto)Mobility, Violence, and Injustice
- Windshield Bias, Car Brain, Motornormativity: Different Names, Same Obscured Public Health Hazard
- Reducing car dependence: benefits, strategies, unintended consequences, and future directions of post-car urban transitions