The Truth About Cars falsely stokes fears of private car ban

August 23, 2019 Steve Media Analysis 0
Mass transit in Portland, Oregon

The headline was about as alarmist as you can get for an auto enthusiast website: “UK Parliament Committee Wants to Ban All Private Cars and Trucks by 2050.” Writer Ronnie Schreiber (2019) then proceeded to lay out the “chilling” news to readers of The Truth About Cars.

“The cross-party Science and Technology Select Committee of Parliament has issued a report that says that if the United Kingdom is to reach its goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050, private automobile and truck ownership must end,” Schreiber declared. “Oh, and if you think your morally pure Tesla or some other EV is going to protect your privilege for personal transportation, no, the environmental Jacobins are coming for all privately operated motor vehicles.”

A number of commentators responded in a knee-jerk fashion. For example:

  • Geo (2019) suggested that “politicians who betray the populace should face execution.” He also wondered, “Is it time for another world war?”
  • Middle-Aged (Ex-Miata) Man (2019) wasn’t sure about World War III, “but the replies here and on the Chinese tariffs thread show it might be time for a second civil war.”
  • SCE to AUX (2019) wrote that the report, if enacted, “provides the seeds for revolution.”
  • John (2019) suggested a “Good Old Fashion Revolution” where the “the Monarchy / Academia / Entertainment / Finance and Politics Elites met the Guillotine.”

The projection here is fascinating. Schreiber has denounced as “environmental Jacobins” a committee of democratically elected leaders from parties representing the United Kingdom’s ideological spectrum. The purpose of select committees is to conduct research. This particular report includes a wide range of stakeholder feedback, such as from the auto industry.

Looks like standard democratic practice to me. Yet in response to this, some TTAC commentators fixated on violent revolution — including the use of the guillotine to execute people who aren’t even political leaders. If Schreiber is horrified by the original Jacobins’ tendency to resolve political disagreements through bloodshed rather than fact-based inquiry and negotiation, why was he silent about these comments?

"Don't believe everything you think" bumpersticker

Schreiber challenged by a few commentators

In a parallel universe far, far away, a number of commentators who actually read the report came away with a very different take. PeriSoft (2019) argued that the report “says nothing like what this article says, and specifically mentions banning only ‘diesel heavy goods’ vehicles by 2050. If anything, it’s anti-EV. There’s no mention of banning personal vehicles.”

Schreiber (2019) strenuously denied that his story was inaccurate and pointed to the following report language: “widespread personal vehicle ownership . . . does not appear to be compatible with significant decarbonisation.” To those who didn’t see evidence in those words of an outright ban, he noted, “If you’re going to claim that the committee did not explicitly call for the banning of private automobiles, my response is that is a distinction without a difference.”

Also see ‘The Truth About Cars should not enable violent talk’

Snooder (2019) offered the painfully obvious response: “There is an important difference between, ‘We need to ban all cars’ and ‘We can’t accomplish our goal just by replacing gas cars with EVs.’ The latter allows for a solution based on the combination of replacing gas cars with EVs for some benefit and then making up the rest through other measures.”

SPPPP (2019) countered that it “seems pretty clear that they want most people not to have a car.” I would agree that “most people” could very well be the report’s equivalent of “widespread personal ownership.” However, in his comment Schreiber did not include an important qualifier: “In the long-term” (STSC, 2019; Section 131).

The report does not offer any deadlines for shrinking the automotive fleet. Nor does it say how much of a reduction would be sufficient. In addition, reducing private ownership of cars is only one of the ways the report suggests that the automotive fleet could be cut.

Folks are free to hyperventilate about that goal if they wish, but it still doesn’t get Schreiber off the hook. The “environmental Jacobins” are not “coming for all privately operated motor vehicles” — either by 2050 or down the road.

Car usership encouraged in place of ownership

What the report does say is that the average car is parked almost 97 percent of the time, which suggests significant room to “increase the proportion of the time that each vehicle is used, with consequent reductions in the total number of vehicles required and hence the emissions associated with their manufacture” (STSC, 2019; Section 125).

Achieving that would require “encouraging vehicle usership in place of ownership” (STSC, 2019; Section 131). If that sounds radical, the report notes that the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders said this “was already how the automotive industry expected urban transport to develop” (STSC, 2019; Section 126). Here’s a direct quote from the trade association:

“In recent years, a clear shift from traditional vehicle ownership to usership has emerged. Individual access to vehicles is still generally the preferred option […] However, new technologies, linked to smart phones, etc. have led to a proliferation of pay-as-you-go schemes, such as car clubs or on-demand mobility services. Many automotive companies are recognising this shift and embracing the new opportunities offering their own services or partnering with other service providers.” (SMMT, 2019; Section 26)

In addition to encouraging usership, the report also calls for improving public transportation and supporting increased levels of cycling and walking.

Interestingly, the report does not weigh in on autonomous vehicles even though the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders stated that the “future of mobility is likely to be Autonomous, Connected, Electrified and, in the urban context, Shared” (SMMT, 2019; Section 25).

This leads to a vexing question: If auto industry leaders see profit potential in various types of car-sharing services, would TTAC commentators recommend that they be executed along with government officials who support car usership over ownership? Or would industry leaders merely be sent to re-education camps?

Is TTAC now the place to talk about violence?

I am not implying that this report is uncontroversial. Banning the sale of cars and vans with internal combustion engines — including hybrids — by 2035 is hardly a modest goal. There’s a lot to debate here. The problem with Schreiber’s article is that its factual inaccuracies and charged rhetoric led a goodly number of commentators to get all worked up over non-issues.

This is an example of how the media help create an “outrage-ification” culture (Johnson, 2019). Whether consciously or not, Schreiber framed his narrative in a way that heightened political polarization and radicalization. Not surprisingly, this led to talk about violence.

My impression is that violent language has recently increased in TTAC’s comment threads (here’s another example). Has this website become known as the go-to place for automotive enthusiasts to talk openly about killing elected leaders and overthrowing governments?

NOTES:

Some of the comments discussed in this story appear to have been subsequently deleted by The Truth About Cars editors.

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