automobiles

"Car Brain" Has Long Normalized Carnage on the Roads

For more than a century people have made excuses for the death and dismemberment caused by automobiles as if it were a phenomenon of nature. 

Julie Livingston and Andrew Ross See the Car as a Machine for Unfreedom

The automobile is an object made to symbolize freedom that actually physically embodies a host of coercive relationships to work, debt, surveillance and policing, and the basic right of free movement, according to the authors of a new study. 

How Paris Kicked out the Cars

Planners and politicians used post-WWII prosperity to remake Paris for cars, making it one of the most car-saturated big cities. Recent changes led by Socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo have show what can happen when priority is given to air quality and public space (though not every Parisian agrees). 

Could the Infrastructure Bill End Drunk Driving?

Technology historian John Mohr says that mandates for driver-monitoring tech could make it nearly impossible for an impaired driver to start and operate a car. The question is whether the auto industry will follow a historical pattern of resisting safety mandates or see them as a chance to innovate. 

You Can't Unsee the Truth About Cars

by Andrew Ross and Julie Livingston

Despite cultural mythology, cars are actually un-freedom machines, and drivers of inequality, particularly for racial minorities. It's a mistake for the Biden administration's infrastructure agenda to further enshrine the car as the dominant means of mobility. 

Considering the Automobile's Influence on Society—Before the Next Influence Takes Over?

by Bryan Appleyard

The story of the car—a story of genius and folly in equal measure—is the story of the making of the modern world. A new book weaves the threads of the automobile's influence through landscape, war and peace, mass production and individualism, and the environment. 

Documentary Shows the Choices that Led to Deadly Streets

Blaming distraction—by drivers, pedestrians or cyclists—for climbing road fatalities is a cop-out, says Jennifer Boyd. Americans need to be willing to question the basic design of roads and the priority they give to moving cars fast if they are serious about reducing road deaths. 

What Does an Electric Makeover Mean for the Car of the Counterculture?

by Jill Lepore

The new electric VW bus seems to lack the charm of the vehicle of the counterculture, reflecting changes in technology and society. 

When Cities Put Up Monuments to Traffic Deaths

by Peter Norton

Rising pedestrian and cyclist deaths in American communities are a call to question the primacy of the automobile and stop accepting roadway carnage. 

Can We Stop Cars from Killing People?

American cyclists and pedestrians are the victims of a century-long political campaign to reorganize public space around the needs of drivers, according to historian Peter Norton. Activists including the families of traffic victims are fighting to change that.

Man Restores a Ford Model T His Grandfather Built a Century Ago

"When I think about my childhood memories of this car—and how tough it was—and I think about how much I enjoy driving it now, I can understand why this little model is the one that put the world on wheels."

Children Versus Cars: The First Road Safety Campaigns (Excerpt)

by Tom Sandage

As outrage over road deaths gave way to laws clarifying expected behavior by street users, pedestrians surrendered much of their free access to the street to drivers. 

How Parking Destroys Cities

by Michael Manville

A long line of historians and urbanists from Lewis Mumford to Jane Jacobs have warned about the negative impacts of building cities around cars. Why have urban planners ignored these warnings? And will things change? 

Author Mia Bay Talks About Traveling Black: A Story of Race and Resistance

Mia Bay's new book examines how the forces of Black freedom and White supremacy collided over freedom of movement. 

Her Crazy Driving is a Key Element of Cruella DeVil’s Evil. Here’s Why

by Genevieve Carpio

The depiction of Cruella DeVil as a dangerous and deranged driver in the new prequel to "101 Dalmatians" draws on deep-seated sexist tropes that recognize driving and mobility as aspects of women's social freedom. 

A Look Inside the Green Book, Which Guided Black Travelers Through a Segregated and Hostile America

UCLA historian Scot Brown calls the "Green Book" a "Black GPS" for the Jim Crow era in an overview of the publication that helped African Americans exercise the freedom to travel. 

The Nobility of Mobility: A Road Trip Through Racism

Historian Chris West notes that “driving in a racist society” persists as a “gut-wrenching horror" in a new PBS documentary "Driving While Black: Race, Space and Mobility in America."

How Mask Fights Echo Seat Belt Fights: ‘The Right To Be Splattered All Over Their Windshields’

Elizabeth Dole’s fight for seat belt laws in the 1980s inspired the sort of rhetoric and division America is seeing today over government mandates to wear masks to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

New York Opens Traffic-Clogged Streets to People During Pandemic, the City’s Latest Redesign in Times of Dramatic Change

by Amy D. Finstein

The COVID-19 pandemic presents large cities with an opportunity to remake public space around different priorities, putting people before automobiles. 

"Faster" Author Neal Bascomb on the Jewish Auto Racer who Defied Hitler

by Neal Bascomb

Rene Dreyfus, a former top driver on the international racecar circuit, had been banned from the best European teams—and fastest cars—by the mid-1930s because of his Jewish heritage.