What is car brain (and how do we cure it)?
I was at a social gathering last month at a friend’s place in downtown Durham. As the party transitioned into going out for drinks elsewhere, some folks began grabbing their keys and walking over to their cars. The rest of us were confused– the bar was just a ten minute walk away, partially why we picked the spot in the first place. The drivers assured us they were far more comfortable taking their cars over instead of walking with the group. Sure enough, the walkers among the party arrived at the bar well in advance of the drivers– those who had driven over burned nearly fifteen minutes looking for parking downtown near the bar and walking from their far-away parking spot to the bar.
Is this all that big of a deal? It’s their time and money to burn, right? Absolutely. However, this very true story demonstrates how our minds default to driving to a degree of inconvenience and cost to ourselves and, in the cumulative sense, our planet. Our vehicles holding an absolute mental monopoly on transportation is the very essence of ‘car brain.’
Car brain can be defined as the unconscious bias towards automobile-oriented transportation. Within the scope of a social interaction such as the one I described above, car brain wastes our time and money. However, living in a car-dominated society where alternative modes of transportation are both unavailable and stigmatized more broadly influences our very ethics and actions. We’re more isolated from our neighbors and the natural environment that surrounds us–and less invested in both–when we’re driving, rather than walking or biking outdoors. This separation from others and nature perpetuates antisocial behavior that generally wouldn’t be acceptable in any other situation: cutting people off on the highway, honking, yelling, or all the other agitations inextricably tied with rush-hour traffic. In turn, driving takes a toll on our physical and mental health, producing spite and pollutants rather than promoting community and personal well-being.
However, we generally don’t question this system. In fact, car brain has figuratively and literally bulldozed over any alternatives to the point that our streets are meant almost solely for car transportation. Sure, the highway-ification of our communities disadvantages the most vulnerable among us, and cars are the single most depreciative personal cost for Americans, and car dependency causes significant damage to our environment and our communities. But our built environment is designed for cars, so naturally people will drive cars as their primary (and only) way of getting around town. 18th century Scottish philosopher David Hume said it best– it is that way, so it ought to be that way.
The relationship between car ownership and infrastructure is a vicious cycle that won’t break in our current state. So, how do we ‘cure’ car brain? The first step to altering transportation behaviors is to acknowledge how we make these behaviors and how these shifts occur. The most recent major transportation-related shift was immensely cultural–it occurred in post-war America and was centered around the idea that the automobile was a vehicle of freedom and prosperity. Any shift away from car dependency must be as monumental as the post-war car boom, if not more.
At its inception, the automobile presented itself as the most convenient method of transportation. However, we now know that with all the financial and environmental baggage it carries that this is not reality. Just as people shifted towards the automobile because of its convenience, people will shift away from it when it becomes less convenient than walking, biking, or taking public transit. This involves physically building the infrastructure for alternative methods of transportation to the point that the automobile is rendered obsolete in certain instances– such as walking from your home to the neighborhood bar.
It’s making our transportation methods a blend of options rather than dominated by the least sustainable of them that has the potential to see us through worsening environmental conditions, breathe new life into our communities, and help to equalize disparities between those who can and can’t own/operate a car.
For those interested in learning more about the psychological biases surrounding car ownership and use, I suggest listening to The War on Cars’ podcast episode on car brain with Dr. Ian Walker, an academic authority on ‘motonormativity’ (linked below).