One of the destructive forces of modern life is vehicular traffic.  The latest available figures from the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) National Centre for Statistics and Analysis record for 2007 in an estimated 6,024,000 police-reported motor vehicle traffic crashes: 41,059 people killed, 2,491,000 people injured, and 4,275,000 cases of property damage only.

 

Traffic congestion is also costly.  Idling and constantly stopping and starting vehicles use more fuel producing more emissions with more harm to air quality, and they need to be repaired and replaced more frequently.

 

The immeasurables may be even more costly.  Traffic congestion wastes enormous amounts of time—delays that result in lost business and incalculable other personal losses.  In-car cell phone usage, as dangerous as it can be, often attempts to salvage some productivity from all the wasted time.  (Oddly enough, despite general awareness of how difficult it can be to actually move in urban traffic, North American social and professional behaviour codes highly value punctuality. ‘Caught in traffic’ is rarely an acceptable excuse for lateness.)

 

Motorists, regularly frustrated by traffic congestion, experience increased stress levels that, over time, have negative health impacts.  The most dramatic but likely only “tip-of-the-iceberg” indicators are the publicized incidents of road rage.  Road rage may be its own pathology or a form of extreme aggressive anti-social driving behaviour.  Behind every road-rager, however, there are, undoubtedly, untold numbers of otherwise polite, patient, and caring people whose cumulative buildup of stress and frustration from their daily commutes is breaking down their physical health and general sense of well-being, and straining their relationships with their family and friends.

 

In the 1990s, trend forecasters claimed to have identified a growing trend of people to socialize less and retreat into their homes as ‘cocooning’.  Cocooning has reduced audiences for many major cultural institutions like symphony orchestras, ballet and opera which tend to attract an older demographic.  These institutions surmise that seismic shifts in cultural tastes are causing their declining audience numbers, but there is an argument that the decline in interest may well be attributable in significant measure to traffic congestion.

 

At this present moment, there are no signs that life in general promises to be risk free and convenient. This, however, does not mean that traffic jams and “death on the highway” must be accepted as norms. Answers will emerge. Will the answers be incremental, or will there be a comprehensive paradigm shift with respect to human transportation? Looking at the history of technology, the paradigm shift may the most likely response. We went from torch light to electric light, horses to “horseless carriages”, prop planes to jets, all in a matter of a few years. We can expect a technological answer to emerge – very soon.