Tuesday, February 15, 2011

The cost of cars

"According to the World Health Organisation, road deaths in Africa could double between 2008 and 2030. Road traffic crashes already account for more deaths than from malaria, and by 2030 road death is expected to exceed AIDS as a cause of death world-wide. [...] Road traffic crashes are estimated to cost developing countries [US]$53 billion per year, which is more than they receive in development aid."
- Ian Roberts with Phil Edwards, The Energy Glut: Climate Change
and the Politics of Fatness
(Zed: London, 2010), 107.
This is an interesting little book. Although it has relatively little to say about climate change, which is largely taken for granted in the discussion despite the title, it effectively explores the many other costs of our globally growing reliance on fossil fuel driven transport. The primary angle is public health, and apart from a series of eyebrow-raising statistics about traffic mortalities, the main thrust is drawing a strong and quite convincing social link between the obesity epidemic and automobile use.

In short (and with various caveats and nuances), the book argues that obesity is not a problem of the obese. We are not faced with a sudden widespread loss of dietary self-control. We are collectively getting fatter (even the thin people), as measured in global and national BMI statistics, and as a result, a rapidly rising percentage of the population now fall into the medical category of obese (BMI ≥ 30). This isn't because we're eating more (we're not: calorie intake is actually declining) but because we're less physically active. And at a broad scale the strongest statistical correlation with physical inactivity is automobile use. Our reliance on the cheap energy of fossil fuels is the root of both climate change and obesity (hence the book's subtitle).

And this is where traffic mortalities and injuries make this trend self-perpetuating. The more cars on the road, the more dangerous the road becomes to pedestrians and cyclists, and the greater incentive there is to participate in a transportation arms race by purchasing a vehicle for oneself. In a given society, after a certain point of automobile use is reached, traffic mortality figures start to decline. The author, whose background is in public health associated with motor vehicle accident trauma, argues that this has relatively little to do public safety campaigns and much more to do with the fact that pedestrians and cyclists, having lost the battle, largely quit the field (or road in this case). A road thus dominated by lumps of steel and iron each hurtling along with more kinetic energy than a speeding bullet becomes a barrier to cyclists and pedestrians, and a powerful motoring lobby* ensures that "accidents" are blamed on the individuals rather than the system as a whole (in a move parallel to the gun lobby: "cars don't kill people, bad drivers and erratic pedestrians do").
*The text notes that eight of the ten largest global corporations (based on the Fortune 500 in 2008) are either oil companies or car manufacturers. And the largest is a supermarket chain, which has its own links to both fossil fuel transport and cheap food energy.

Those excluded, of course, include all children, who are then conditioned into a sedentary lifestyle from a young age.

Ironically, obesity is actually a greater health threat than cycling on dangerous roads dominated by cars and trucks.
"The overall risk of death for adults who cycle to work on a regular basis is between 10 and 30 per cent lower than for those who drive to work (Woodcock et al., 2009). This survival benefit persists after controlling for a range of factors that might differ between cyclists and motorists. In other words, even taking into account road danger, the balance of health risks and benefits is strongly in favour of cycling. Cycling in traffic may be dangerous but not cycling is more dangerous. There are consistently fewer deaths than expected from heart attacks, strokes and cancer among cycle commuters. [...] There is also evidence that the injury risks for cyclists decrease as more people take up cycling. Per kilometre, cycling is safer when there are a lots of other cyclists around. It has been estimated that a doubling in the percentage of the population that cycle results in a 34 per cent reduction in the death rate per kilometre cycled (Jacobsen, 2003). By cycling, you will improve your own health and you will help to make cycling safer for others, encouraging more to join the growing movement."

- The Energy Glut, 108.

Cycling is revolutionary in more ways than one. Get on your bike.
Image by JKS.

27 comments:

byron smith said...

SMH: More young people not bothering to get drivers license. An interesting trend. I know a few who fit it.

byron smith said...

Guardian: Debunking the myth that cycling causes heart attacks. Long-term causes are different to triggers.

This is an important conceptual distinction for many areas.

byron smith said...

Grist: How bicycling will save the economy. Some interesting stats here.

byron smith said...

Monbiot: On reducing speed limits.

byron smith said...

Guardian: Future of cycling in NYC.

byron smith said...

Guardian: Update of situation in NYC.

byron smith said...

This SMH story misses the point by not asking how many heart attacks and other deaths were prevented by the increase in cyclists.

byron smith said...

The effect of commuting on breathing - loss of breath suffering by all but cyclists due to exhaust particles.

byron smith said...

Colarado - winners in a race of losers.

byron smith said...

CP: US needs to learn from Europe how to ride a bike: "Until we start thinking of bikes as essential transportation and not just a hobby, all the small changes that will allow working people to commute along those beautiful bike paths won’t happen."

byron smith said...

Guardian: Cyclists' rights in the UK. Advice: ride like a car drives. There is no minimum speed limit and you have the right to be safe. Implication: motorists need to learn the road rules and to get used to being slowed by an increasing number of riders.

byron smith said...

The Conversation: Obesity blame game.

byron smith said...

The Conversation: Common cause between fighting obesity and climate change. Not just bikes, but diets.

byron smith said...

ABC: Climate change and obesity. A more direct link is suggested by some very tentative research into the effect of increased CO2 on brain function and metabolism. Even I think this is a bit of a long bow. I guess we'll see...

byron smith said...

John Roe reviews The Energy Glut. Good summary of the main arguments and some thoughts on application and critique.

byron smith said...

Nice graphic about fat and money, bikes and cars.

byron smith said...

Guardian: Motoring group pushes dodgy stats to demonise cyclists.

byron smith said...

The Conversation: Obesity, poverty and inequality. Also published on the same day The big fat fight: the case for fat activism.

I don't doubt that there are real social stigmas and discrimination against fat people. But I'm not yet convinced of the medical case for obesity not being a serious health problem. I need to look further into the studies mentioned in this piece.

byron smith said...

The Conversation: How does obesity cause disease?

byron smith said...

Ian Roberts has co-authored a paper titled The Weight of Nations in which the researchers estimate the total extra human biomass as a result of obesity and excess weight and the extra food required to feed all this extra flesh. Controversial but thought-provoking.

byron smith said...

Guardian: Lazy, inaccurate slurs against cycling are commonplace.

byron smith said...

Guardian: Pollution risk? Study finds that for each extra death of a cyclist due to increased exposure to air pollution, 77 lives are saved due to increased cardiovascular fitness.

byron smith said...

Guardian: UK zombie roads. How depressing. The UK road protests of the 90s were huge. Looks like we're heading down the same, um, path again.

Byron Smith said...

SMH: Women spending more time behind the wheel, putting health at risk.

byron smith said...

Guardian: Bike helmet laws in Australia, viewpoint from a conscientious objector.

byron smith said...

Grist: Climate change, food insecurity and obesity. As food prices rise, diets tend towards more junk food.

byron smith said...

Guardian: Roads weren't built for cars.