WARNING: Driving cars kills. Should companies be able to market them as speedy, sexy objects of desire?
We all know that cars are dangerous to our health. Drivers of cars kill thousands every year directly by mowing them down, and indirectly through pollution from exhausts. Then of course, there is the damage that drivers do to themselves by not getting exercise. I wrote last year that cars are killing us, and it is time to limit the damage to drivers and to people around them, just like we did with smoking.
Writing in The Age, environmental educator Arwen Birch has an interesting proposition that picks up on this. He thinks advertising of cars should be banned, just like it was for cigarettes in most of the world. “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, like driving, is about freedom! /Promo image
Birch reminds us that just like cigarettes, car exhaust contains benzene and many other cancer-causing chemicals that build up inside the car.
BMW Bavaria ad/Promo image
Birch also notes that car ads promote speed and sexiness.
Smoking used to be sexy. Can you imagine this today?/Promo image
Of course, some people need cars, and nobody was very happy with my earlier proposal to ban them entirely from cities. Commenters suggested instead that we should ban TreeHuggers. And while banning car advertising might reduce the demand for big fancy Dodge Demons, Elon Musk hasn’t spent a dime on advertising and has had no trouble selling his cars. Nevertheless, Birch concludes:
Readers often complain that I seem quick to trample on people’s rights and freedoms, just because I don’t personally like being poisoned or squished. But at some point we have to ask, what can we do to stop the destruction caused by the automobile, the pollution, the congestion, the murdering of children in the streets. Perhaps an ad ban is a place to start. What do you think?
Should car ads be banned?
