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http://www.brookesnews.com/032404cars.html
War against the car Gerard Jackson BrookesNews.Com Thursday 24 April 2003
What is it about cars that cause our social engineers, would-planners and environmentalists such
anguish? After all, the car has been a great liberator for the masses, giving them the kind of
freedom that was once the exclusive preserve of the wealthier classes. Mass production put America
on wheels and then Europe, providing mass individualised transport as an alternative to collectivist
transport systems.
Furthermore, it is forgotten what a great boon the car has been to the urban environment. Before the
car there was the horse. Great cities like London, New York and Paris suffered appalling pollution
from horse transport. Streets were polluted by masses of dung and urine which fouled the air and
contaminated the waters. (A horse produces about 20 kilos of dung per day so imagine the pollution
problem, all too real before the car, that tens of thousands of horses could cause in a city.)
Moreover, disposing of dead horses was no easy matter and a considerable health problem. In the
1890s New York city had to dispose of about 15,000 dead horses a year, when they could be found.
But now the car has become the arch-villain, a technological plague posing a grave threat to the
environment. Frank Fisher and Sharron Pfueller, lecturers in the Graduate School of Environmental
Science, Monash University, Victoria., exemplify the greens' loathing for the motor car, absurdly
describing it as "the single most destructive device ever introduced into the urban context."
These academics have made a number of accusations. It is true, as they say, that people are killed
and maimed in car accidents. But what do they think it was like when horses were the main source of
urban transport? Of course, what they are really saying is that transport accidents would be far
fewer if people were forced to abandon their cars in favour collectivist transport systems, state
owned, of course. I doubt if there is anyway of knowing this giving the massive extent to which
public transport would have to expand to become a serious substitute for the car.
This view invariably ignores the fact that public transport is incapable of providing the kind of
mobility and convenience that the car has so brilliantly supplied. But I suggest that "mobility and
convenience" for the mass of people is not high on the agenda of middle class greenies. Not that
they are unaware of the car's considerable advantages. I suspect that it is these very advantages
that greens particularly loathe and this comes out in their attacks on what they disparaging call
urban sprawl.
What the likes of Fisher and Pfueller do not seemed prepared to realise is that the alternative to
urban sprawl is greater urban density. And yet I have heard so-called planners fervently argue
against relaxing any laws that would raise urban density, and then rail against the evils of urban
sprawl., blaming it on the "domination" of the car. Naturally, urban sprawl, "caused by privatised
automobility", caused "isolation" and "innumerable" health problems. It is easy to expose the green
hypocrisy in this argument. The only people who reluctantly move to the suburbs are those who have
been priced out of the urban market. Thanks to anti-social planning laws that have created a
wasteful use of land rents and house prices have risen above free market levels.
What would have happened to these people if they had been denied the right to create suburbs? They
would have been trapped in a vicious cycle of rising rents while trendy inner city greenies enjoyed,
and do, the luxury of rising capital values.
A great many also move to the suburbs because they like the space and the relative quiet, which is
why I moved. And it is "privatised automobility" that made my move possible, thank God. I, and my
neighbours, enjoy the comparative quiet, the wide neat avenues and the quiet walks, especially in
the evening.
According to this pair people like me are to be condemned because our low-density suburban style
(greens also oppose high-density urban living) raises energy consumption. So what? There is an
abundance of energy. What is scarce is the means, i.e., capital to transform it into useful work.
Tony Harris is another one who does not like cars very much (Motorists don't pay their way on the
road, The Australian Financial Review, March, 2000). Given the huge amounts motorists pay in various
taxes and charges one could be forgiven for being puzzled by Harris's assertion. As expected, he
brings in externalities. Pollution, road deaths, congestion, etc. Ignored is the fact that cars are
getting cleaner by the year. No mention of the fact that today's cars produce 76 per cent less
nitrogen oxide and 96 per cent carbon monoxide than those of 20 years ago — and they’re still
getting cleaner.
We find a similar trend with accidents. In America car deaths were
18.9 per 100,000 in 1989, down from 30.8 per 100,000 in 1937. This decline occurred despite the
enormous number of car miles travelled. Though I have no figures at hand for Australia, I should
be surprised if we have not experienced a similar trend. Fatalities down massively. Pollution
down massively. In fact, we have already seen how the car actually helped reduce pollution in big
cities and eliminate a dangerous health hazard. But no trade offs for greens.
Now it is not true that car accidents are externalities. If that were so victims of car accidents
would never be compensated. It should be self-evident that insurance is the means by which car
accidents are internalised, i.e., paid for by car owners. It is also true that you cannot really
internalise any fatality. But how many people, for example, are electrocuted each year? Does this
mean the electricity generating industry should be penalised? Are these deaths even internalised by
the industry? Of course not. But people consider the benefits of electricity outweigh any risk of a
fatal accident. And they think the same way about cars. In short, the danger from cars is an
acceptable risk, a risk that is getting smaller.
What about congestion? This is a peculiar one considering that it is motorists that usually bear its
costs. That they choose to do so indicates that the costs are outweighed by the benefits of driving.
It is also peculiar from another angle. One reason we have congestion is because parts of the road
system are inadequate to the task. Seeing that the roads are owned by the state, I think it is a bit
rich to blame their shortcomings on motorists.
Any suggestion of expanding the road system is stridently attacked by greens. John Kirk, Executive
Director of the high-sounding Australasian Railway Association, argued that road building induces
more road use. The answer is, you've guessed it, restrict motor car usage. But the supply-demand
argument is erroneous. Cars and roads are complementary goods, i.e., they go together. Does anyone
really think, for instance, that if the Indian government criss-crossed the country with freeways
hundreds of millions of peasants would rush to buy Volvos?
I do not know a single person who bought a car in response to any road building program. It’s
the growth in cars that raises the demand for more and better roads, just as it raises the
demand for oil.
Australian motorists fully pay for their roads. Anyway, it is ludicrous to talk as if motorists and
the community are separate entities. The same motorists who pay for roads also pay other taxes — and
almost everyone in the community benefits in some way from the existence of cars.
I’m inclined to think that if cars were extremely expensive and thus confined to the very well-off
instead of being enjoyed by the masses, there would be nothing resembling an anti-car movement. The
rich would have their private transport (cars), near empty roads to enjoy them along with the kind
of mobility that the masses had always been denied until the advent of the mass-produced car: the
people's liberator.
Gerard Jackson is Brookes' Economics Editor
http://www.brookesnews.com/032404cars.html
War against the car Gerard Jackson BrookesNews.Com Thursday 24 April 2003
What is it about cars that cause our social engineers, would-planners and environmentalists such
anguish? After all, the car has been a great liberator for the masses, giving them the kind of
freedom that was once the exclusive preserve of the wealthier classes. Mass production put America
on wheels and then Europe, providing mass individualised transport as an alternative to collectivist
transport systems.
Furthermore, it is forgotten what a great boon the car has been to the urban environment. Before the
car there was the horse. Great cities like London, New York and Paris suffered appalling pollution
from horse transport. Streets were polluted by masses of dung and urine which fouled the air and
contaminated the waters. (A horse produces about 20 kilos of dung per day so imagine the pollution
problem, all too real before the car, that tens of thousands of horses could cause in a city.)
Moreover, disposing of dead horses was no easy matter and a considerable health problem. In the
1890s New York city had to dispose of about 15,000 dead horses a year, when they could be found.
But now the car has become the arch-villain, a technological plague posing a grave threat to the
environment. Frank Fisher and Sharron Pfueller, lecturers in the Graduate School of Environmental
Science, Monash University, Victoria., exemplify the greens' loathing for the motor car, absurdly
describing it as "the single most destructive device ever introduced into the urban context."
These academics have made a number of accusations. It is true, as they say, that people are killed
and maimed in car accidents. But what do they think it was like when horses were the main source of
urban transport? Of course, what they are really saying is that transport accidents would be far
fewer if people were forced to abandon their cars in favour collectivist transport systems, state
owned, of course. I doubt if there is anyway of knowing this giving the massive extent to which
public transport would have to expand to become a serious substitute for the car.
This view invariably ignores the fact that public transport is incapable of providing the kind of
mobility and convenience that the car has so brilliantly supplied. But I suggest that "mobility and
convenience" for the mass of people is not high on the agenda of middle class greenies. Not that
they are unaware of the car's considerable advantages. I suspect that it is these very advantages
that greens particularly loathe and this comes out in their attacks on what they disparaging call
urban sprawl.
What the likes of Fisher and Pfueller do not seemed prepared to realise is that the alternative to
urban sprawl is greater urban density. And yet I have heard so-called planners fervently argue
against relaxing any laws that would raise urban density, and then rail against the evils of urban
sprawl., blaming it on the "domination" of the car. Naturally, urban sprawl, "caused by privatised
automobility", caused "isolation" and "innumerable" health problems. It is easy to expose the green
hypocrisy in this argument. The only people who reluctantly move to the suburbs are those who have
been priced out of the urban market. Thanks to anti-social planning laws that have created a
wasteful use of land rents and house prices have risen above free market levels.
What would have happened to these people if they had been denied the right to create suburbs? They
would have been trapped in a vicious cycle of rising rents while trendy inner city greenies enjoyed,
and do, the luxury of rising capital values.
A great many also move to the suburbs because they like the space and the relative quiet, which is
why I moved. And it is "privatised automobility" that made my move possible, thank God. I, and my
neighbours, enjoy the comparative quiet, the wide neat avenues and the quiet walks, especially in
the evening.
According to this pair people like me are to be condemned because our low-density suburban style
(greens also oppose high-density urban living) raises energy consumption. So what? There is an
abundance of energy. What is scarce is the means, i.e., capital to transform it into useful work.
Tony Harris is another one who does not like cars very much (Motorists don't pay their way on the
road, The Australian Financial Review, March, 2000). Given the huge amounts motorists pay in various
taxes and charges one could be forgiven for being puzzled by Harris's assertion. As expected, he
brings in externalities. Pollution, road deaths, congestion, etc. Ignored is the fact that cars are
getting cleaner by the year. No mention of the fact that today's cars produce 76 per cent less
nitrogen oxide and 96 per cent carbon monoxide than those of 20 years ago — and they’re still
getting cleaner.
We find a similar trend with accidents. In America car deaths were
18.9 per 100,000 in 1989, down from 30.8 per 100,000 in 1937. This decline occurred despite the
enormous number of car miles travelled. Though I have no figures at hand for Australia, I should
be surprised if we have not experienced a similar trend. Fatalities down massively. Pollution
down massively. In fact, we have already seen how the car actually helped reduce pollution in big
cities and eliminate a dangerous health hazard. But no trade offs for greens.
Now it is not true that car accidents are externalities. If that were so victims of car accidents
would never be compensated. It should be self-evident that insurance is the means by which car
accidents are internalised, i.e., paid for by car owners. It is also true that you cannot really
internalise any fatality. But how many people, for example, are electrocuted each year? Does this
mean the electricity generating industry should be penalised? Are these deaths even internalised by
the industry? Of course not. But people consider the benefits of electricity outweigh any risk of a
fatal accident. And they think the same way about cars. In short, the danger from cars is an
acceptable risk, a risk that is getting smaller.
What about congestion? This is a peculiar one considering that it is motorists that usually bear its
costs. That they choose to do so indicates that the costs are outweighed by the benefits of driving.
It is also peculiar from another angle. One reason we have congestion is because parts of the road
system are inadequate to the task. Seeing that the roads are owned by the state, I think it is a bit
rich to blame their shortcomings on motorists.
Any suggestion of expanding the road system is stridently attacked by greens. John Kirk, Executive
Director of the high-sounding Australasian Railway Association, argued that road building induces
more road use. The answer is, you've guessed it, restrict motor car usage. But the supply-demand
argument is erroneous. Cars and roads are complementary goods, i.e., they go together. Does anyone
really think, for instance, that if the Indian government criss-crossed the country with freeways
hundreds of millions of peasants would rush to buy Volvos?
I do not know a single person who bought a car in response to any road building program. It’s
the growth in cars that raises the demand for more and better roads, just as it raises the
demand for oil.
Australian motorists fully pay for their roads. Anyway, it is ludicrous to talk as if motorists and
the community are separate entities. The same motorists who pay for roads also pay other taxes — and
almost everyone in the community benefits in some way from the existence of cars.
I’m inclined to think that if cars were extremely expensive and thus confined to the very well-off
instead of being enjoyed by the masses, there would be nothing resembling an anti-car movement. The
rich would have their private transport (cars), near empty roads to enjoy them along with the kind
of mobility that the masses had always been denied until the advent of the mass-produced car: the
people's liberator.
Gerard Jackson is Brookes' Economics Editor
