Francis Curzon, the fifth Earl Howe, was renowned for his love of fast cars, particularly souped-up Bugattis. However, his passion for speed led to numerous incidents, including collisions with pedestrians and fatalities. In 1947, J. S. Dean, the chair of the Pedestrians’ Association in England, documented these incidents in a scathing polemic. Dean criticized the earl’s assertion that pedestrians were to blame for road safety issues, highlighting the hypocrisy of car drivers considering themselves pedestrians in other situations. The term “car brain” has emerged in online urban planning communities as a pejorative to describe this mindset. It reflects the undeniable fact that people make excuses for the dangers posed by cars, remaining loyal to them despite overwhelming evidence. This tension has persisted throughout the existence of cars, becoming more evident in recent years, with a significant rise in car-related fatalities. While cars are a necessity in many parts of the United States where alternative transportation options are limited, the love affair with cars seems to cloud rational judgment. The term “motonormativity” describes the normalization of the harms caused by cars and the inability to objectively assess their effects. A recent study conducted in the UK attempted to measure this bias, revealing a pro-car attitude among respondents. Ian Walker, one of the study’s authors, argues that this bias prevents a fair evaluation of the risks associated with cars. While some may view Walker’s perspective as extreme, dissent against the car-centric narrative has existed from the early years of mass-produced automobiles. The cognitive dissonance surrounding cars has become more pronounced, with motor vehicles being a leading cause of death in the U.S. Many experts question why society does not treat this issue with the same urgency as other public-health concerns. Despite hopes that new technologies like self-driving cars would address this problem, they have only highlighted the arrogance of car culture. The need for radical solutions to the dangers of cars persists.
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