> EU officials must revisit the hastily agreed trade deal with the US, where the EU stated that it “intends to accept” lower US vehicle standards, say cities – including Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam, and more than 75 civil society organisations. In a letter to European lawmakers, the signatories warn that aligning European standards with laxer rules in the US would undermine the EU’s global leadership in road safety, public health, climate policy and competitiveness.
They point to many things and not only the size of cars - like fewer approvals, lower pollution controls, fewer safety measures.
Some of them increase utility (like people might prefer bigger cars) and others decrease cost.
Death and suffering by other road users. It should be obvious to anyone with a working moral compass that nobody should die just because someone wants a larger car, or wants to go faster, or wants to drive under the influence – or simply has to drive because there are no better options.
Direct monetary costs to the society caused by said deaths and injuries inflicted.
CO2 emissions rapidly making the entire world a worse place to live for generations to come, with the death toll likely being in tens of millions as a conservative estimate. Climate refugees will number in hundreds of millions if not billions. Traffic emissions are dropping very slowly compared to other big sources, and that's almost entirely because of private cars and the political difficulty to regulate driving anywhere near enough even in less car-brained societies.
Particle emissions, including tire and brake dust. These affect the health of billions of people and cause countless premature deaths annually. Dust is flushed into water bodies, causing ecological damage. EVs are heavy and wear down tires and road surfaces much faster.
Noise emission, which is a real, recognized health hazard and a cause of stress. EVs still have wheel noise, which is a major noise component in urban areas.
Direct healthcare costs to the society caused by inactive sitting-based lifestyle. Car-friendly infrastructure is actively hostile, not just indifferent, to active modes of transport.
Direct costs to the society incurred by dark, paved surfaces and a lack of canopy coverage because cars need space. This can have an alarming effect on urban temperatures, increasing the need for cooling solutions and, in the absence of such, contributing to the hundreds of thousands of annual heat-related hospitalizations and deaths.
The costs of building expensive new car-centric infrastructure are externalized to everybody. Toll roads are rare. Taxes on gasoline are nowhere near high enough to cover all the externalities even in Europe. Driving is subsidized by the society, which is economically incredibly inefficient.
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While we're at it, let's go over the main opportunity costs as well:
Indirect costs to the society by deaths and injuries in the shape of healthy work-years lost.
Indirect costs to the society caused by inactive lifestyle in the shape of healthy work-years lost. When you count both direct and indirect costs, spending money to encourage people to bike and walk, for example by building safe infrastructure, ends up saving money in the end.
There are vastly more economically sane uses for all the extra space that cars need in urban environments where land is valuable, including a wasteful number and width of lanes, streetside parking, parking lots, and parking garages.
Vast amounts of money have been, are being, and will be spent on road infrastructure that could be used on vastly more efficient modes of transport such as rail-based transit.
> EU officials must revisit the hastily agreed trade deal with the US, where the EU stated that it “intends to accept” lower US vehicle standards, say cities – including Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam, and more than 75 civil society organisations. In a letter to European lawmakers, the signatories warn that aligning European standards with laxer rules in the US would undermine the EU’s global leadership in road safety, public health, climate policy and competitiveness.
They point to many things and not only the size of cars - like fewer approvals, lower pollution controls, fewer safety measures.
Some of them increase utility (like people might prefer bigger cars) and others decrease cost.