The Harms of Cars... Mind-Boggling

Kea Wilson, senior editor at Streets Blog USA, recently wrote about a comprehensive study that looked at the cumulative harms of car domination. 

(Click to enlarge.)

When Wilson posted to Twitter about it, she noted the things that surprised her about the study's findings, despite her years of writing about car hegemony:

• Cars are the weapon of choice for thousands of people worldwide every year when they commit suicide.
• Up to half of military conflicts between countries are based on oil.
• Getting lead out of gas hasn't meant the end of lead: it's "still in our car paints, road paints, batteries, and just generally hanging out on our roads, and it kills 120k/year."
• Car crashes "are the leading cause of injuries in pregnant women."
• The microplastics we hear about all the time derive mostly from car tires. 
• U.S. residents have twice as many cars per capita as most Europeans, four times as many as the Chinese, and way more than pretty much anyone else on Earth.
  
  

Quoting the study: “While some people benefit from automobility, nearly everyone — whether or not they drive — is harmed by it,” the authors wrote. “Slowing automobility’s violence and pollution will be impossible without the replacement of policies that encourage car harm with policies that reduce it.”