When someone says, “Oooh, smoking makes me cool!” my tobacco control colleagues would waste no time in pointing out that they are simply influenced by cigarette ads. Yet those same people argue that cars instil a sense of status and that it is thus extremely difficult to argue people out of wishing to own them. But if ads influence how people view tobacco products, why should they not influence how people perceive cars? Surely there are many other ways in which one could show one’s status...and many other values that could be more important to people than status.

Rather than accept the idea that people want cars due to status, we need to remind ourselves of the pernicious effect of advertising...and work to counter it, just as we have successfully, in most of the world, prohibited the advertising of tobacco products. As to the argument that cigarettes kill...let’s not forget all the car crashes, all the people choking to death from air pollution, and all those who will die young from diseases related to obesity, in part because they cannot walk or cycle anywhere...because of the omnipresent car.

Rather than accept the ideology of the automobile, let us work together to fight it...and to make our cities great places for moving around without the burden, expense, environmental damage, and danger of a car.