Doug posted two articles on Cars that I forwarded to Austin Williams of the pro-car Transport Research Group. These were his replies:
Killer Cars The article states that each car "puts out 59.7 tonnes (65.8 tons) of carbon dioxide, and creates 26.5 tonnes (29.2 tons) of solid waste. Or, from another perspective, each car will kill three trees and sicken 10; every seventh car injures someone, every 100th handicaps someone, and 450th kills someone. One out of every 100 people are killed in a road accident, and two out of three are hurt".
Or to put it another way......... Since 1992, catalytic converters have been fitted to all new cars leading to a 32% reduction in toxic pollutants. The CO2 emissions for example, from cars are approximately 45% of all man-made CO2 emissions. In turn these are only 4.5% of global emissions, ie car-generated CO2 is approximately 2.5% of all CO2 emissions. The UK government will achieve its target reduction of CO2 emissions before the deadline date.
By far the biggest cause of global CO2 emissions is human breathing (daytime) and plants (nightime). Obviously, we in the Transport Research Group distance ourselves from the Malthusian logic which seems to be permeating the environmentalist's critique.
The solid matter from the car is seldom "waste" - being one of the earliest products to enter recyclable maintenance regimes. The figure cited is equivalent to its own body weight lost every year!
In the UK, urban areas and roads take up just 11% and 1.5% of all land areas respectively. The death of 3 trees over a 10 year period cannot be heightened into an environmental calamity.
Road accidents and fatalities have been in decline almost year on year in the UK since records began. Statistically, over the course of one's life there is 1:2000 chance of being killed by a car. With 3500 deaths each year, (not all attributable to the fault of the driver) the numbers of deaths are a cause for studied celebration, not despondency.
Guardian's author and Green Party activist John Whitelegg's conclusion that "the car is ... an environmental, fiscal and social disaster that would not pass any value-for-money test", seems to bear no relation with the modern world. The clamour to eliminate or reduce the use of the car may prove to have more damaging consequences.
Austin Williams Director Transport Reearch Group austinrhys at aol.com
AUTOPARISITES It is becoming a typically narrow-minded response for transport commentators to advocate penalising motorists under the guise of increasing social and economic equity.
Unfortunately, the equity proposed, always tends to revolve around increased penalties, bans and regulation.
The logical extension of the argument, for example, is that people who can read, should pay increased taxes because some people aren't interested in an education. Why should the uneducated pay taxes to subsidise the bright?
Unfortunately, this is lowest common denominator logic of Komanoff et al. We in the Transport Research Group believe that transport provision should be for all, but only if it's worth having at all.
As it happens, social and technical advancement brings financially unquantifiable benefits to society, not least in terms of convenience, speed, comfort and progress. The car has all of these and more. To simply weigh up 'tolls & taxes' versus highway maintenance & administration is lazy economics masquerading as social concern.
For a more honest economic analysis, examining the cost benefits accruing to society from the use of the car, maybe Komanoff should assess the implications of taking cars off the roads altogether. Only then might he see the far-reaching, positivea dn essential financial impact that the car makes on the real economy.
Austin Williams Director Transport Research Group austinrhys at aol.com ................................
-- Jim heartfield