AUTOMOBILES

One of the distinguishing characteristics of human beings is that they have always been mobile. From its origins on the African continent, the human species has traversed the earth and populated every continent but Antarctica. For most of human existence, land travel was entirely dependent on human and animal muscle power. Radical changes came in the nineteenth century with the invention of steam-powered locomotives, and toward the end of the century the first automobiles powered by internal combustion engines were created in several industrially developed countries. By the first decade of the twentieth century automobile ownership was expanding at a rapid rate in the United States, and this pattern was followed in subsequent decades in many other parts of the world.

Cars gave people an unparalleled ability to go where they wanted, when they wanted, and with whom they wanted. In short, they promised freedom. Early motorists eagerly took advantage of this freedom, embarking on long journeys despite miserable road conditions and the uncertain reliability of their vehicles. By the 1920s automobile ownership had been democratized in the United States as manufacturing innovations dramatically lowered purchasing prices, giving rise to an era of mass motorization.

In the early-twenty-first century car ownership has expanded to such an extent that in many industrial nations the ratio of cars to people approaches or even exceeds one to two. Yet universal automobile ownership presents a paradox. Although the great virtue of the automobile lies in the freedom that it confers, the ownership and operation of a car has subjected its users to numerous restrictions. Traffic laws, registration and licensure requirements, vehicle inspections, insurance, and a significant financial burden put a serious crimp on feelings of unrestrained freedom. Individual freedom is also stifled by the sheer proliferation of automobiles; people acquire and use cars to enhance their mobility, but when they do so in large numbers the result is traffic-stopping congestion, and everybody's freedom of movement is diminished accordingly. In sum, the automobile is a prime example of how the aggregated pursuit of individual freedom can produce the opposite result—submission to numerous restraints, immobility, and frustration.

Clearing the Air

Many of the ethical quandaries posed by the automobile can be reduced to an overarching issue: achieving a balance between the individual freedom that comes with operating a car and the needs of society as a whole. The difficulty of doing so is exemplified by the forty-year-old campaign to reduce air pollution. A single car has a negligible effect on air quality, but 100,000 in a limited area can be the source of significant pollution. In recent years there have been substantial gains in air quality due to the application of technological fixes such as computerized engine management systems, reformulated fuels, and catalytic converters. But these never would have been developed and used if each motorist followed only his or her self-interest. Emission-control technologies add substantial costs to the purchase and operation of a vehicle, yet they do nothing to improve air quality if no other cars are similarly equipped. It is therefore necessary for an agency working on behalf of the collectivity, in most cases government at some level, to mandate that cars and the fuel they use produce fewer pollution-forming emissions. As long as everyone is required to meet similar regulations there is little cause for complaint. People may grumble about paying higher prices for cars and fuel, and they may resent the time absorbed by periodic smog checks, but few would want to return to the preregulation era when air pollution caused by uncontrolled vehicle emissions severely diminished the quality of life.

It has been relatively easy to mesh individual with collective interests in combating air pollution because the environmental consequences of operating an automobile are all too apparent to anyone who has to live in a gray-brown haze of smog. This in turn substantially increases public receptivity to the governmental actions taken to reduce emissions. It also helps that the available technological fixes do not require a massive overhaul of the transportation system; all that is needed are some modifications to automobile engines and the fuel they use. The same does not hold true when addressing another inescapable product of vehicle operation: the generation of carbon dioxide (CO₂). There are no easily applied technological fixes to reduce CO₂ emissions, which are the inevitable product of burning hydrocarbon fuels. The only likely solution entails the abandonment of the internal combustion engine in favor of battery-powered electrics, while hoping that battery performance can eventually be improved. Further in the future lies the possibility that fuel cells will become practical sources of power, but their adoption would necessitate major changes in the infrastructure that supports the automobile and the expenditure of billions of dollars. Moreover obtaining the hydrogen to power the fuels cells is problematic. The most feasible source is petroleum, and the energy costs of the conversion process would require the production and consumption of significantly larger quantities of this diminishing resource.

Even if alternatives to the internal combustion engine become available, the task of getting motorists to accept them remains, because CO₂ emissions do not have the immediate, all too apparent effects of ordinary smog. Because CO₂ is odorless and colorless, most drivers are unaware of the fact that, on average, they are pumping about a pound of it into the atmosphere for every mile they drive, and that vehicles account for about 30 percent of CO₂ emissions in the United States. Yet in the long run these emissions may be more harmful than the smog-forming by-products of internal combustion. If, as many atmospheric scientists believe, CO₂ accumulation in the atmosphere is a major cause of global warming, the long-term results of automobile operation could be disastrous. But global warming is still a controversial issue, and if it occurs will take a long time to manifest itself. Consequently it will be far more difficult to mandate the manufacture and operation of totally different kinds of vehicles, or to do away with the private automobile altogether.

Automotive Safety as an Ethical Issue

Setting aside the problem of controlling CO₂, the case for asserting the primacy of collective needs over individual freedom seems clear-cut in regard to automotive emissions controls. Somewhat more ambiguous is the issue of making safer cars. One may reasonably begin with the assertion that the most important determinants of the safe operation of vehicles are the actions and skills of their operators. When 30 percent of the more than 42,000 fatalities on U.S. roads in 2003 involved drivers whose blood-alcohol level was over the legal standard for driving under the influence, it is not reasonable to demand that cars should provide perfect protection from the consequences of individual irresponsibility. At the same time, however, some accidents may be unavoidable, and even when driver error is involved, death and injury cannot be considered appropriate penalties for momentary lapses.

For decades automobile manufacturers were convinced that safety features were of scant interest to consumers and they expended little or no effort to improve the ability of automobiles to protect their occupants in the event of an accident. This situation began to change dramatically in the 1960s, when Ralph Nader and other critics attacked the industry's indifference. Automotive safety became a salient cultural and political issue, and a combination of market demands and government regulations prodded manufacturers into making cars that did a much better job of protecting their occupants when accidents occurred.

Of all the safety improvements that ensued, the most important was the fitting of seat belts as standard equipment. Subsequent advances such as shoulder-and-lap belts made these restraints even more effective, but they were of no value when left unused. During the early 1970s only a small minority of U.S. drivers and passengers regularly used seat belts, so for the 1974 model year an effort was made to encourage their use by fitting cars with interlocks that prevented the vehicle from being started if all occupants had not buckled up. Vociferous protests caused Congress to repeal the requirement in short order.

Convinced that the majority of drivers and passengers could not be convinced to use seat belts, the federal government mandated the fitting of passive restraints to new cars. Some of these took the form of motorized harnesses that wound their way over an occupant's upper body, but far more popular was the airbag. By the mid-1990s driver and front-seat passenger airbags were virtually universal fittings on new cars. Airbag technology was predicated on the need to protect an unbelted male weighing 80 kilograms (175 pounds). Providing protection for a person of this size necessitated the design of airbags that inflated in milliseconds and reached speeds of up to 320 kilometers per hour (200 miles per hour), at which point they exerted 500 to 1,180 kilograms (1,100 to 2,600 pounds) of force on the upper body.

It soon became apparent that airbags deploying with this force could be lethal, especially for children and drivers under a certain height who had to sit close to the steering wheel. By mid-2003, 231 people (144 of them infants and children) had been killed by airbag deployments, some of them triggered by collisions occurring at very low speeds. In contrast to these airbag-related fatalities, there was an estimated 14 percent reduction of the risk of being killed in the event of an accident. But this is far less than the 45 percent reduction attributed to the use of seat belts. Used together, airbags and seat belts lower the risk of fatality by 50 percent. It is thus apparent that airbags are a useful supplement to lap-and-shoulder belts, but they are not a substitute. A majority of the driving public seems to have recognized this fact, and approximately 70 percent of drivers now use seat belts, far more than had been deemed possible when passive restraints were first decreed. This has allowed the installation of airbags that inflate with less force. Some cars are being designed with smart airbags that vary the force of deployment according to a number of variables, such as the weight of the driver or passenger. These improvements will make airbag deployment less hazardous, but the risk of some airbag-induced casualties still remains.

Assessing whether or not the lives saved by airbags have outweighed the deaths they cause is no easy task. It can be said with certainty, however, that no medicine with the airbag's ratio of deaths caused to lives saved would ever have been approved by government regulators.

Ethical Perspectives

Although the United States, with its long travel distances and individualist social values, has set a dominant pattern for automobile development and utilization, other countries have sometimes adopted public policies at variance with those of the United States. For example, in part because of smaller streets and roadways, cars in Europe are generally smaller in size than those in the United States. And because automobile ownership was for many decades largely restricted to upper-income individuals, European countries also have generally taxed gasoline at higher rates, with some of the revenues used to subsidize public transportation systems.

The issues engendered by automobile emissions and automotive safety hardly exhaust the ethical concerns posed by the automobile wherever it has taken hold. For example, important issues can be raised about the consequences of the automobile's ravenous consumption of energy. In addition to the environmental problems already mentioned, the massive demand for petroleum-based fuels has affected the distribution of wealth at both a national and international level. In many petroleum-producing countries the bulk of oil revenues has gone to a small segment of the population, contributing to a lopsided distribution of income and wealth, and exacerbating social tensions. For the world as a whole, high energy prices due in part to the ever-increasing demand for automotive fuels have made the efforts of poor countries to modernize their economies more difficult.

In the realm of international relations, important questions can be raised in regard to how foreign policies and military operations have been affected by the need to maintain access to, or even control of, oil supplies, especially in the Middle East. Finally the accelerating use of the world's petroleum supplies and their inevitable depletion should provoke questions regarding what, if anything, is owed to future generations by the present one. In sum, as befits an artifact that has shaped the modern world like few others, the automobile has generated a host of ethical issues that need to be addressed if reasonable and effective public policies are to be developed and implemented.

RUDI VOLTI

SEE ALSO Environmental Ethics;Ford Pinto Case;Pollution;Safety Engineering:Practices;Roads and Highways.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bryner, Gary C. (1995). Blue Skies, Green Politics: The Clean Air Act of 1990 and Its Implementation. Washington, DC: CQ Press. A narrative and analysis of the governmental processes that resulted in stiffer emissions regulations.

Flink, James J. (1988). The Automobile Age. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. A comprehensive history of the automobile and its consequences.

Illich, Ivan. (1974). Energy and Equity. New York: Harper & Row. A provocative challenge to the dominance of automobile-based transportation and an energy-intensive society in general.

Nader, Ralph. (1972). Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile. New York: Grossman. The book that launched the crusade for improved automobile safety.

Volti, Rudi. (2003). "Reducing Automotive Emissions in Southern California: The Dance of Public Policies and Technological Fixes." In Inventing for the Environment, ed. Arthur Molella and Joyce Bedi. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. A discussion of the interrelationship of policy initiatives and technological change.