Cars cars cars cars

Goddamn road improvement programs. When I'm cruising the highways wanting to get somewhere I want fast, smooth safe roads, uncongested with few or no distractions like intersections or stop-dead, turn-hard corners. A "freeway" for example. Other times I want to have fun and some twists and turns mean uncongested, safe but twisty, testing roads are what I want. But really, does it matter what I want? Why not just slow down, drive carefully and concentrate on getting there safely, in one piece.

But life's not like that. We come from all directions on what we want from our roads. The first premise in most "road improvement" arguments is that we need wider roads and less congestion, coupled with fewer obstacles for people to hit; of course this encourages cars (or drivers, rather) to go faster, which is not necessarily so good - going slower in cities may be safer and create a more pleasant community environment for example.

Now someone has suggested developing an intelligent - and safer - roadway, and sure that's laudable; but I'd be concerned about the huge energy expense in replacing or adapting current road infrastructure with an active road system. As we need to think sustainably across the whole planet is this complexity justifiable? What is saved or created here?

Such rapid transit automation ideas as the "smart road" may be more applicable to mass transit systems, rather than personal ones. In terms of embedded intelligence in our personal transport (if we assume this is actually sustainable) could we not continue to integrate such things as GPS, motion and avoidance detection within our cars and provide a higher degree of automation and governance of the car itself? I'm thinking that the car would sense it's in a suburban street and reduce emissions, reduce sound impact and reduce its speed and acceleration potential to match the local environment. It could then sense when the vehicle is on a less restricted highway, for example, and provide greater performance whilst still automatically adjusting to traffic density. You could embed RFIDs or use some other wireless method to indicate changing road types whilst retaining a measure of human control. Coupled with GPS you'd cover most road possibilities (including poor roads in developing nations) without enormous expense. Mind you we still have to determine if sophisticated personal transport is actually compatible with our environmental, social and health needs. Where and when do we get our exercise when we are zooming around in our smart cars on smart roads? Do we need smart bicycles instead?

In terms of innovating and developing product then we could look at technologies that will sustainably support future development, both in personal transport and rapid mass transit - in all countries of the world. So systems of control and governance of energy expenditure, and systems that adapt the vehicle to the environment in which its travelling would be saleable commodities. Reducing infrastructure cost and "footprint" at the same time would be an important goal. Simpler is better.

I would agree that people have varying degrees of emotional attachment with their cars, but cars have only been around for a little more than 100 years and only in widespread use for maybe 60 years. People used to use mass transit, bicycles and their legs quite happily until fairly recently after all. In some countries they (cars) are still not 'essential' items. On the other hand clothes have a more pervasive practical necessity about them that goes back thousands of years.

It won't be an easy transition for many people but maybe cars and the massive infrastructure they require are just not sustainable in the longer term? It's a question that has to be asked. The energy and associated climate "crunch" is our opportunity to rethink our personal transport solution. Let's not forget also that cars (and roads) consume energy in their manufacture, maintenance and distribution as well - it's not just a "fuel" issue, it's a total 'it's been fun but can we afford this' question. Maybe the answer is very different from our perception of a "car".