By externalising costs on others, I am referring to the way that some activities impose costs on people who aren't doing the activity. I don't drive, but I can still be killed by a car, be injured by one, suffer respiratory disease (and I do), find local shops and facilities replaced by vast out-of-town retail monoliths, have half the country's railway network disassembled in the 1960s, find that bus services are a bad joke...
An activity that externalises costs looks more attractive than it should. If drivers bore the full cost of driving - and not-drivers could live somewhere car-free, without the danger and inconvenience - many fewer people would drive. As it is, we get to live in a world blighted by the damn things whether we use them or not.
I certainly mean that I don't accept lifts. Since I've never had a licence, resolving not to drive myself would not be much of a decision. :-)
The only private motor vehicle I've been in in the last three years was a removal van when I was moving house.
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Date: 2011-01-10 05:49 pm (UTC)An activity that externalises costs looks more attractive than it should. If drivers bore the full cost of driving - and not-drivers could live somewhere car-free, without the danger and inconvenience - many fewer people would drive. As it is, we get to live in a world blighted by the damn things whether we use them or not.
I certainly mean that I don't accept lifts. Since I've never had a licence, resolving not to drive myself would not be much of a decision. :-)
The only private motor vehicle I've been in in the last three years was a removal van when I was moving house.