ABSTRACT
As we pointed out in Chapter 1, the car is unquestionably central to the lifestyle of most people in modern Western societies, and the nature of the personal mobility it provides is likely to remain one of mankind’s most prized assets for as much of the twenty-first century as we can reasonably foresee.50,51
Dorling, in his Westminster oration on traffic safety in 2010, went so far as to say: “We prioritise what is good for the motor industry over what is good for human beings. We do this because the industry has become a force in its own right.”52 Society has such an affinity with cars that Nobel Prize-winning novelist William Faulkner claimed: “The American really loves nothing but his automobile: not his wife his child nor his country nor even his bank-account first.”53 Others have described our car dependency as a Faustian bargain.51
