Cars and behaviour: Psychological barriers to car restraint and sustainable urban transport

This article analyses the phenomenon of the motor car and driving behaviour in terms of current psychological theories, particularly the motivation theory of Henry A Murray (1938) and the acceptability/availability model of behaviour as described by Rose (1990). These theories contain a set of concepts for the analysis of car ownership, car use and driving behaviour and for the development of intervention strategies to influence these. Psychological and social/contextual aspects of human behaviour are partly the product of previous developments in the meanings, functions and appraisal of that behaviour. Behavioural analysis of car use and driving therefore is not complete without an initial examination of the phenomenon of the motor car in a historical and social-cultural perspective and of the extent to which historically defined meanings and motives determine the current car culture and driving behaviour, such as done by Sachs (1984). This will be followed by a detailed analysis of the most significant motivational functions of the car. In as much as the car is a technique par excellence of satisfying basic human motives and needs, current car ownership, use and driving habits can largely be explained in terms of the acceptability/availability hypothesis (Rose, 1990), on the basis of which recommendations for reduction and control can then be made. In the context of democratic market-based economies the extent to which reduction and control of car ownership and use can be achieved, however, is modest at the most. For the car-industrial-cultural complex is both an economical and psychological force of enormous magnitude as well as an expression of contemporary types of personality.