Every Reason to Hate Cars

Cars are convenient for individuals, but they impose large, often hidden costs on everyone—through deaths, injuries, pollution, noise, climate impacts, and social harm—so “car freedom” comes with a public bill that cities and governments keep paying. A 2024 UK research review, “Car harm: A global review of automobility’s harm to people and the environment,” frames automobility as a system of externalities: benefits accrue to drivers, while health and financial damage spreads across society.

The most immediate toll is physical harm. Traffic crashes kill about 1.3 million people per year worldwide and are the leading cause of death for ages 4 to 30, according to the review’s use of World Health Organization estimates. Over the lifetime of cars, the authors estimate 60 to 80 million deaths, and in the past 25 years more than 2 billion injuries—some leading to lifelong disability. Even where crash deaths had been falling, the review points to a shift toward larger vehicles—SUVs and pickup trucks—whose height and mass increase fatalities and serious injuries, especially for people outside the vehicle such as pedestrians and cyclists. Regional comparisons underline the point: road deaths fell in the EU by 36% since 2010 but rose in the US by 30%, with pedestrian deaths up 80% in the US over the same period.

The harm extends beyond “accidents.” Many road deaths are described as preventable through safer street design and lower speeds, with cities increasingly adopting a default 30 km/h limit. The review also highlights intentional violence using vehicles—drive-by shootings, car bombs, and deliberate crashes—along with self-harm methods involving exhaust and carbon monoxide. Meanwhile, even avoiding crashes doesn’t end the risk: vehicle pollution (including nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, ozone, and particulate matter) is linked to heart and lung disease and a range of neurological and mental health outcomes.

Pollution isn’t just tailpipe emissions. Cars generate hundreds of pollutants from brakes, corrosion, lubricants, and road wear. Tyres and road surface abrasion create “road dust,” a major source of microplastics and nanoplastics. Research cited in the transcript reports that tyre wear accounts for 65% of microplastic particles in urban air in Leipzig, and that tyre-related chemicals such as 6PPD—used as a rubber stabilizer—have been found toxic to fish species.

Noise and heat are additional city-level damages. Rolling tyre noise dominates above 30 km/h, and electric vehicles can be louder at higher speeds due to greater weight. Vehicle environments also intensify light and thermal pollution, worsening sleep and amplifying urban heat island effects. Climate change enters through both direct emissions from fuel and the broader carbon footprint of producing vehicles and building infrastructure like asphalt and concrete.

The review’s social argument is that car-centric planning reshapes daily life: it reduces walking and cycling, increases sedentary behavior, and can deepen isolation. It also distributes risk unevenly. Children, older adults, visible minorities, and Indigenous people face higher fatality rates; women are cited as more likely to be seriously injured or die in crashes even after accounting for factors like seat-belt use and crash intensity. Disability access suffers because car-dependent layouts force reliance on others or costly specialized transport.

Finally, the transcript ties car harm to policy and economics. Car use is subsidized through public spending on policing, emergency response, road maintenance, and especially parking requirements that push costs onto non-drivers. Attempts to “solve” congestion by expanding roads are portrayed as financially and empirically flawed, with induced demand and high replacement costs. The alternative is a package of interventions that reduce car use and harm—congestion pricing, removing most on-street parking, replacing minimum with maximum parking limits, building car-light areas, lowering speed limits, and expanding cycling, e-bikes, micromobility, and car-sharing.

The core takeaway is not a call to ban cars everywhere, but a demand to treat cars as a tool—useful when necessary, harmful when dominant—and to redesign cities so most people can live without needing to drive.