Car Brain with Dr. Ian Walker
The War on Cars
The War on Cars, LLC
4.9 • 937 Ratings
🗓️ 31 January 2023
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Is it acceptable to harm another person? To steal someone’s private property? To bend health and safety rules just to save a few minutes or make more money? According to a new study, it might depend on whether or not a car is involved. Dr. Ian Walker, a professor of environmental psychology at Swansea University in Wales, joins us for a fascinating discussion about the unconscious biases we all share in favor of cars, how those assumptions shape our streets, and how they prevent the kind of change needed to make them safer. It’s a phenomenon he and his co-authors call “motonormativity.”
This episode is sponsored by Cleverhood. Receive 15% off anything in the Cleverhood store using the special coupon code in this episode. Good for a limited time only!
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LINKS:
Read the full study: Motonormativity: How Social Norms Hide a Major Public Health Hazard.
Learn more about Dr. Ian Walker.
How closely do drivers pass cyclists? According to Dr. Walker’s research, it depends.
What if people behaved in grocery stores the way they do behind the wheel of a car? (PSA via Norway’s State Road Administration)
Buy The War on Cars merch in our store and books by podcast guests at our official Bookshop.org page.
This episode was edited by Ali Lemer and recorded by Josh Wilcox of the Brooklyn Podcasting Studio. Our theme music is by Nathaniel Goodyear. Our logo was designed by Dani Finkel of Crucial D Designs.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Looking for a good way to show your affection this Valentine's Day, |
| 0:04.4 | keep your loved ones safe and dry while walking and riding a bicycle |
| 0:08.7 | with Cleverhood. |
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| 0:18.0 | Their unique cape-like design keeps the rain off while giving you the freedom to move and reflective trim makes |
| 0:26.1 | you visible on the street at night. Cleverhood has cool new designs coming out |
| 0:30.6 | all the time like the Urbana Not Rain Cape comes in five styles and is a big |
| 0:35.6 | favorite among War on Cars co-hosts and family members. So for a 15% |
| 0:40.6 | Valentine's Day discount go to cleverhood. |
| 0:43.5 | com slash war on cars. |
| 0:46.6 | Enter coupon code, clever love when you check out. |
| 0:50.0 | That code's good for a limited time only. |
| 0:52.7 | Again, that's Cleverhood.com |
| 0:55.4 | slash war on cars. |
| 0:57.9 | Coupon code Clever Love. Anyone alive today has only known a world where cars come first and this not only tells us how the world is, it suggests to us how the world should be. That thought process stifles change because |
| 1:21.5 | the average person who's grown up in that world unconsciously believes |
| 1:26.1 | that that world cannot change it is that way so it ought to be that way. |
| 1:38.5 | This is the war on cars. I'm Sarah Goodyear. With me are my co-host Aaron Napersack and Doug Gordon. Hey, how's it going? Good, how you guys doing? |
| 1:44.0 | It's good to be here in the studio again. |
| 1:46.0 | Yeah, happy New Year. |
| 1:47.0 | Is this our first New Year episode technically, altogether at least? |
| 1:50.0 | I think so. |
... |
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