How Cars Change Us with Tara Goddard
The War on Cars
The War on Cars, LLC
4.9 • 937 Ratings
🗓️ 17 December 2024
⏱️ 71 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Why do people behave so badly behind the wheel of a car? Why do reporters and the police use passive language to describe automobile crashes and traffic violence? How do the words we use make a difference in street safety? Dr. Tara Goddard, one of the top scholars studying what it is that cars do to our brains and the way we treat each other in the world, has some thoughts — and she’s done the research.
Tara is an associate professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning at Texas A&M University. Her work focuses on creating a just transportation system through safe roadway design and inclusive transportation planning.
We talked with her about “motonomativity,” how race influences how drivers treat pedestrians, and why language matters if we want to change the conversation about whom streets are for.
*** Support The War on Cars on Patreon and receive exclusive access to bonus content, ad-free versions of regular episodes, free stickers, merch discounts, early access to live shows, and more. ***
This episode was produced with support from Cleverhood and Sheyd Bags. Listen for the latest discount codes.
Buy tickets to our live show with CityNerd on January 31, 2025, at Hunter College in New York City.
LINKS:
Follow Tara on Bluesky.
Some of Tara’s studies:
- “Racial Bias in Driver Yielding at Crosswalks” (Transportation Research)
- “Does News Coverage of Traffic Crashes Affect Perceived Blame and Preferred Solutions? Evidence from an Experiment” (Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives)
- “Windshield Bias, Car Brain, Motonormativity: Different Names, Same Obscured Public Health Hazard” (Transport Findings)
Some other things we discuss in the episode:
Dr. Ian Walker’s research and our interview with him (Episode 99: Car Brain with Dr. Ian Walker)
Sarah’s piece, “How I Became an Urban Monster in Just 10 Minutes” (Bloomberg CityLab)
“Death of Cyclist in Paris Lays Bare Divide in Mayor’s War Against Cars” (New York Times)
“The glare of the sun caused the westbound vehicle to jump the curb” (Emily Walters on Bluesky)
Laura Laker’s new “Road Collision Reporting Guidelines”
Get official podcast merch in our store.
This episode was edited by Ali Lemer. It was recorded at Brooklyn Podcasting Studio by Josh Wilcox. Our music is by Nathaniel Goodyear. Our transcriptions are done by Russell Gragg.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | I just gotta say, I love my shade bag. |
| 0:05.0 | What is a shade bag you might be wondering? |
| 0:08.0 | Well, it's a stylish backpack and it's also a double bike pannear. |
| 0:12.0 | And it converts from one to the other with just a few quick zips. |
| 0:16.0 | Speaking of zips, the zippers on the shade bag are super smooth and sturdy and the exterior |
| 0:22.1 | flaps and pockets stay closed with magnetic fasteners. So whether you're riding your own bike |
| 0:27.6 | with a rack, hopping on a bike share bike, taking the train or bus, or just walking, the shade |
| 0:33.5 | bag has you covered. It looks terrific too, either in the original blue or the new black. |
| 0:40.2 | Plus, Shade Bags is a small, woman-owned business based in Huntington Beach, California. |
| 0:46.4 | You can check out the double-bike-panier backpack by going to ShadeBags.com slash War on Cars. |
| 0:52.5 | That's S-H-E-D-Bags.com slash war on cars. That's s-h-e-y-d-bags.com slash war on cars. Enter discount |
| 1:00.1 | code 10 war on cars at checkout to get 10% off. That's the number 10, war on cars. Welcome to the War on Cars. I'm Sarah Goodyear and I'm here with my co-host, |
| 1:24.1 | Doug Gordon. How's it going? We've got a great episode coming up. |
| 1:28.3 | We're really excited about this guest. |
| 1:30.6 | But before we get to the guest, we've got a bunch of business we have to get through. |
| 1:35.8 | First of all, longtime listeners may have noticed that Aaron isn't with us. |
| 1:40.3 | He has decided it's time to move on. |
| 1:42.8 | And we really want to thank him for his contributions |
| 1:45.3 | over the years, and we sincerely wish him all the best. Yeah, we really mean it. Thanks for |
| 1:51.0 | everything, Aaron, and good luck with everything. We've got a lot of big things to look forward to |
| 1:55.6 | in the coming month and in 2025. We are working on a year-end mailbag episode to celebrate our listeners and all the good things that have happened this year. |
| 2:05.5 | If you're a Patreon supporter, you should already have gotten an email about that. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The War on Cars, LLC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The War on Cars, LLC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.