ABSTRACT
The most significant recent developments in the study of car travel have come from mobility studies rather than the long dominant field of transport psychology (Cresswell 2006; Hannam et al. 2006; Sheller and Urry 2006). In sociology John Urry (2000, 2004) has argued that we need to rethink how we conceptualise society in tandem with how we understand travel. Just as society is characterised by its increasing mobility as it begins the twenty-first century; so mobility, in the form of transport, is manifest in building and maintaining extended networks of colleagues, friends and family (Urry 2003). In geography Tim Cresswell, over a number of works, has charted how the notion of movement might require a much more fundamental shift in how we investigate spaces and places (Cresswell 2006). In a variety of ways, the study of car transport has found itself re-emergent in this new field. At the same time car travel is, of course, a pressing problem for a world with rapidly rising levels of car ownership and use, unprecedented levels of energy consumption, pollution and road congestion. A pressing problem that cannot easily be solved for the very reason that the car itself is the solution to so many of our daily logistical problems: getting to and from work, shifting groceries, collecting children from school, visiting friends and family and going on holiday (Larsen et al. 2006; Pooley et al. 2006).
