Two Podcasts Make a Pair

I've mentioned the War on Cars podcast just a few times since I started listening to it in 2024 (here and here).

Two of its recent episodes are excellent.

One is called Changing Lanes. That's the title of a documentary that tells the story of what it has taken to win the electoral and policy fight to rebuild a dangerous car-oriented boulevard in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. There are many lessons in their experience, and it sounds like even more can be learned from the documentary – so I hope to be able to see it soon.

The most recent episode is with Ian Loader, Oxford University professor of criminology. It's called Rethinking Criminal Consequences for Drivers Who Kill. 

Contrary to what one might expect of a biking advocate, Loader does not want drivers to take more criminal responsibility within the current system. These are his concluding words in the podcast, but to understand what he means, you really have to listen to the whole thing:

The standard chain of logic with how we deal with road safety at the moment goes something like this: that driving is basically safe. It only becomes unsafe if individuals do it dangerously. And then therefore the chain of intervention goes something like: individual responsibility [to] enforcement [to] punishment. 

My alternative goes something like: the starting point is that mass motoring is a system of harm production even when people are driving carefully and considerately. And that the chain of intervention should be: start with systems, think about structure, and then bad driving has consequences — not necessarily punishment.

How we get any of the types of changes Loader describes to happen is the main problem. The work described in the Changing Lanes is part of the solution.