A ban on car advertising may seem far-fetched, but if you compare the automotive and the tobacco industries, the similarities may be closer than you think. Smoking and car use have comparable health costs, yet while we have the strictest tobacco promotion laws in the world, we allow car companies to promote themselves unbridled.
Smoking accounts for around 15,000 deaths and an estimated cost to the economy of $31.5 billion each year. Car accidents alone cost the economy an only slightly smaller $29.7 billion, but this does not include the significant health costs of air pollution and inactivity resulting from car use. Around 1300 people die and 32,000 are seriously injured in vehicle accidents each year. And while the vast majority of smoking-related deaths occur in those aged over 65, road trauma destroys young lives. It is the leading cause of death for people aged 15 to 29. Even more damning, however, is the little-known fact that the premature deaths from the road toll may be dwarfed by those from vehicle emissions.
Car fumes contain a toxic mix of chemicals that are implicated in a wide range of diseases including cancer, Alzheimer’s and respiratory illnesses. Researchers from the University of Melbourne argued recently that given the large number of early deaths caused by motor vehicle pollution it is car use, not car accidents, that is the more significant killer. Benzene, a well-known carcinogen also found in cigarettes, is found in the petrol fumes that build up inside cars.
Most parents would probably try to avoid exposing their children to second-hand cigarette smoke but will readily drive their kids to school, exposing them to similar harmful fumes. Professor David King, a former UK chief scientific adviser, gave a recent warning to parents about the adverse effects on children’s developing lungs and brain from the toxic air that accumulates in the back seat. However, there may be a still larger impact on our health system than pollution and road trauma.
The Australian Burden of Disease Study found smoking to be the second leading cause of disease burden in Australia. But what did it come second to? Obesity. Diet plays a significant role in obesity, but it is only one side of the coin – the other is inactivity. The Netherlands, famous for its shift from cars to bikes, is the only country in the world that is currently reversing the trend of an increasingly obese population.
This year the British Medical Journal published a study that revealed that those who cycle to work rather than drive cut their chances of developing heart disease and cancer by half. And Britain recently estimated that it could save itself £1.6 billion ($2.8 billion) in health costs if it copied the Dutch approach to cycling. In Australia, groups such as Walk to School Day are working to decrease car use – but unfortunately the promotion of healthy transport is far outstripped by our exposure to car advertising.
The vehicle industry is the fourth largest advertising spender in Australia. Cars are advertised the way cigarettes once were: freedom, coolness and sex appeal. There is often little about the car and a lot about the pleasure of driving. Cars are shown gliding effortlessly around empty streets. Could this subliminally implanted expectation that we should be the only car on the road play a role in road rage and the pressure to take up public space with more roads, a never-ending cycle that produces more drivers and more traffic?
Worse still, we allow car ads to emphasise the appeal of speed, one of the main killers on our roads, as in Mazda’s “zoom zoom” or a recent Nissan advertisement that used Usain Bolt. Just like cigarettes, we are being mislead and the image promoted is a far cry from the reality of poor health outcomes and mounting costs.
Of course, the smoking-driving comparison is not limitless. Plenty of people need to drive for work and many vehicles perform essential services to our society. But much of our driving is not need, but habit, propped up by constant advertising that emphasises the desirability and normality of driving. Little by little, we may be able to reverse our car culture. While the biggest gains will come from infrastructure for pedestrians, cyclists and public transport, it remains a tougher battle to discourage car use when we are so frequently bombarded with positive car images. Rates of smoking have been dropping ever since tobacco advertising bans came into force in 1976. Given the enormous cost to public health and amenity posed by cars, perhaps we could start considering we do the same with them.
Arwen Birch is an environmental educator.