The Cost of the Car is a dispassionate but engaging account of the
consequences of predicating our habitat on the automobile, largely
from a technical point of view. (The author is a former physicist
and aerospace engineer.)
Treating transport as an engineering problem, the car is first
assessed, in comparison with other options, with regard to
efficacy, safety, price, and performance. The cost to the wider
economy, community, health, and the environment is then also
considered. While the extent of its deficiencies become clear, so
does the value we place on privacy and control.
Three short stories attempt to relate the true nature of road
accidents, obscure in dry statistics. Each is an account of real
events but substitutes fictional characters to protect the
individuals concerned. Only in this way can the aftermath be
understood, and the full human cost counted.
An introduction to the greenhouse effect and global warming is
included, along with a discussion of alternative sources of energy.
The root cause of congestion is also explained, along with the
nature of the 'modal inversion' that occurred between road and rail
in the 1950s. The Cost of the Car represents the first widely
accessible collected account of these issues.
Lastly, the author considers alternatives to sprawl which, while
preserving the freedom to drive a private car, introduce the
liberty not to.
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