To reduce the road deaths toll, we need to tackle ‘Car Brain’

Any perceived inconvenience ignites ‘Car Brain’ as we justify our right to behave in a manner that would not be tolerated in any other aspect of urban living, writes Catherine Conlon.
To reduce the road deaths toll, we need to tackle ‘Car Brain’

‘Car Brain’ refers to the cultural blind spot that makes people apply double standards when they drive

There have been almost 80 deaths on our roads so far this year, and more than half of these were vulnerable road users, such as pedestrians, cyclists, motor cyclists and pillion passengers.

Others have survived with life-changing injuries, such as permanent disability and catastrophic brain injuries.

The Road Safety Authority routinely urges drivers to be ‘mindful’ of vulnerable road users, to ‘stay alert’ and ‘slow down’.

Most severe crashes occur because of the normalisation of the prioritisation of car use on roads – both in terms of collective attitudes and government policy.

What many of us fail to acknowledge is a condition that prevails on Irish roads where drivers of motorised vehicles, separated from vulnerable road users by ever increasing road height, tinted windows and tonnage, are prioritised. That condition is called ‘Car Brain’.

‘Car Brain’ justifies or ignores anti-social behaviour when it involves a car. It’s why someone who would normally hold the door open for an elderly person or hand over their seat on a bus, will speed through a zebra crossing or zip through an amber light as an older pedestrian or a child crosses the road.

It’s why people ‘rat race’ through housing estates or school zones because they’re ‘late for work’. It’s why people park in bicycle lanes because they can just ‘go around’, or because they ‘don’t need all that space’.

It’s why many of us experience low grade anxiety when we walk to work, or middle to high-grade anxiety when we cycle into town.

What starts as personal entitlement all too often ends in tragic consequences.

I cycle to work on a narrow road and a queue of cars crawl behind me, exhausts billowing as they shake their fists and beep their horns to get me out of the way. On my route, two kids cycling along the road to school came within literally inches of being knocked off their bikes as an SUV driver, in a car the size of mini-tank whizzed along the road.

Elderly people, too afraid to cross the road, stay at home.

Any perceived inconvenience ignites ‘Car Brain’ as we justify our right to behave in a manner that would not be tolerated in any other aspect of urban living.

Imagine if I shouted at someone for walking too slowly on the way into a local shop or that they took up too much space on the pavement when I tried to get past them.

Imagine if I rebuked a neighbour for not wearing their high viz vest or intimidated a stranger by walking right behind them to urge them to hurry along.

Imagine if I whizzed past people on my bike and drowned them in the nearest puddle, rather than slowing down or taking the time to go round.

All this happens daily between motorists and pedestrians or cyclists. It has become so normal that we don’t even see it. We might get annoyed but still accept is as completely normal.

Environmental psychologist, Ian Walker tweeted in 2023 that “Car Brain - the cultural blind spot that makes people apply double standards when they think about driving - is real, measurable, and pervasive”.

In a study published in the Journal of Environment and Public Health (2022), Walker highlighted the reality of the double standards associated with chronic ‘Car Brain’.

The researcher found well over half (61%) of respondents either agreed or strongly agreed that safety risks were a natural part of driving, while less than a third (31%) thought hazards in the workplace were acceptable.

The author concluded this pro-car bias is not just due to bad policies that mean driving is the only realistic choice. It’s also a societal value, reinforced by our own families and the media “and countless small daily interactions that seem innocuous at the moment but add up to powerful norms”.

Correcting these norms around ‘Car Brain’ includes policy decisions around planning laws, environmental laws and policing standards: “Build a street where people can’t speed, and there will be a period of brief moaning and complaining. But you won’t have speeding.”

While the Cork city development plan 2022-2028 proposes to develop it around 15-minute neighbourhoods while promoting public transport and active travel, already the plan has been changed to allow more parking in a way that could weaken the 15- minute city concept and undermine ambition around climate targets.

Less than a year after the introduction of the plan, in 2023 minimum parking standards agreed in August, 2022, were relaxed as the city council proposed a variation in parking allowances in certain zones to “align the demand management approach” with the current level of public transport provision.

Fianna Fáil Cllr Sean Martin said it was a sensible compromise while Fine Gael Cllr Joe Kavanagh described cars as “a necessary evil”, and said they “are always going to be with us no matter how good public transport is”.

Meanwhile, Paris - already the golden boy of active travel - recently announced even more ambitious plans. A city-wide shift has already led to 84km of bike lanes since 2020, tripled SUV parking fees, banned electric scooters and removed 10,000 parking spaces.

Now the city plans to erase 10,000 more parking spots, to make more room for trees, bikes and people.

Not traffic.

If approved, 500 streets in Paris will be turned into green walkable spaces. This kind of ambition is bold and controversial. But it is exactly the kind of leadership cities need right now.

In 2023, Irish Cycle, an independent outlet, conducted research in the urban areas of Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway to quantify the rollout of high quality cycle routes and networks within these cities.

Cork City Council reported the most higher-end routes at 45km compared to Dublin City Council at 23km, Limerick City Council 13km and Galway City Council an even more miserable 5km.

While we continue to wait for policy change and urban planning improvements as the Cork City Plan is rolled out, to make vulnerable road users less vulnerable, be prepared to listen to your own ‘Car Brain’.

That is the voice whispering in your ear that anything slowing down a driver must be wrong – even if the wrong thing is an elderly person or a child trying to cross the street, or a cyclist unwillingly slowing you down.

The first step is recognising that we are all breathing in the same toxic culture fumes in the society that we are part of.

Dr Catherine Conlon is a public health doctor in Cork.

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