TRANSPORT IMPACTS

It has often been mentioned that we are “addicted to the automobile”.  I have taken this opportunity to explore these claims.  Before we start, it is important to grasp the concept of addiction.  Addiction is often described in terms of obsession, commpulsion and excessive dependence, .  While these terms are descriptive they are not very definitive.  It seems clear that people do have dependence on cars, but whether it is excessive or not is under question.  Miller gives the following conditions for addiction:  

• The person is willing to pay a price for the behaviour that seems, from a normative social judgment perspective, inordinately high.
• The person is judged to have diminished ability to regulate the behaviour. (Miller, 1998)

 Through reading this definition, it feels that we have two answers to the question of addiction to automobiles.  While it seems that people on an individual level are not addicted to cars, people on a population level are addicted, which in turn affects individual behaviour.  Individuals retain the ability to regulate their travel behaviour if they choose to and people are not paying inordinately high prices from a normative social perspective as cars have become affordable and are seen as a normal part of life.  Meanwhile, we see that society is willing to pay an inordinately high social and environmental cost to continue the “automobile-centric” way of life, along with this, it feels that due to the inertia associated with institutions, urban planning, lifestyle, regulations and economics, society has a diminished ability to regulate the car culture.

Interestingly, the knowledge of our society’s addiction to the car affects our individual behaviour as we feel that this addiction (and not our personal addiction to the car) is beyond our control.  People’s lack of perceived behavioural control, in being able to stop society’s automobile addiction subsequently affects their behaviour.