The Misogyny of the Anti-Motorists
Janis Joplin didn’t plead with the Lord for a bus or a bicycle. She wanted a Mercedes Benz, not least because her friends all drove Porsches. And given the chance, many of us would want one too.
Despite non-stop, anti-car eco-propaganda, punitive taxation, swingeing parking costs, 15-minute cities and 20mph speed limits, we British still want and need our cars.
In the week when Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan extended London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone, it is worth remembering that in March this year, there were 40.8 million licensed vehicles in the UK. In the first quarter of 2023, 503,000 new cars were registered, along with 90,000 new vans and 13,000 HGVs – an increase of about 17 per cent in all three categories compared with 2022.
This surely is a cause for celebration, evidence that the country’s financial wheels are turning again. The automotive industry is central to the UK economy: in 2021 it employed almost one million people and accounted for 10 per cent of UK exports, while related manufacturing turned over £67 billion, reports the SMTT (Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders).
Instead of being saluted for literally driving Britain’s prosperity and well-being, motorists are demonised by policymakers. Whether school-run mums, white van men or truckers, drivers exist merely to be punished and taxed.
Mayor Khan is currently the most high-profile politician who maligns the motorist. His determination to drive the poorest off the roads is shared by the SNP which aims to cut car usage in Scotland by 20 per cent by 2030. In Wales, Labour’s anti-car fanaticism has led to major road projects being scrapped and, imminently, a default 20mph speed limit.
For those of us supporting the Conservatives, unfortunately the government’s default appears to be as driver-hostile as the Opposition parties. Too many Tory MPs and ministers would have us out of our cars and onto buses (and bicycles) before you can say Lewis Hamilton. And too few realise that their anti-car stance is implicitly anti-women.
November 2020 was a good month to bury bad news: Covid was on the march and the tier system being considered. It coincided with the government’s announcement that it was bringing forward the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars and vans to 2030. Men are three times more likely to be aware of this key policy than women.
Net Zero is policymakers’ latest front in their perpetual war on motorists – and it is women who look like being the casualties in this particular battle. “No Driver Left Behind: Women and the Journey to Electric”, a report from AutoTrader and Hive by British Gas, highlights the growing divide between the Have Watts (men) and the Have Nots (women).
Too little is being done to address the concerns of UK’s 19 million female drivers about EVs, particularly in relation to charging. Editor Erin Baker notes: “A significant concern of women, not expressed as frequently by men, is the possibility of running out of charge on a motorway with children in the back.”
Personal safety is rarely considered by policymakers who are keen bully us out of our cars (which explains their being in denial about death-trap smart motorways). Clearly, they are indifferent to the 2022 Office for National Statistics’ data showing that 58 per cent of women aged 16-34 reported feeling very unsafe or fairly unsafe when using public transport alone after dark, as do half of women aged 55 or older. Those who seek, however inadvertently, to imprison women at home should be working for the Taliban not in the Department for Transport.
Too many pushing the green (and Greens’) agenda assume that convenient, reliable public transport is available. But as the House of Lords’ Built Environment Committee found “many British towns and cities outside London have inadequate local transport infrastructure.” They didn’t begin to examine the public transport not-spots in suburbia and rural areas.
For many voters, a car is a necessity, not a choice. Unsurprisingly, of the 645 billion passenger kilometres travelled in Britain in 2021, 88 per cent of them were in cars, vans and taxis. Despite the explosion of cycle lanes, cycling declined by 7 per cent in 2021 compared with 2019, according to the National Travel Survey. And cycling is overwhelmingly a male pursuit, one that is untroubled by the big weekly shop or toddlers in buggies.
It seems that (male?) eco-fanatics are getting excited about trucks powered by overhead catenaries (me neither). Meanwhile, back in the real world, women are being told to dump their cars for public transport that not only feels unsafe but is often dirty and dismal. A big night out? A wedding? A celebration? On with the frock and the finery then a wait at a rainy bus stop, day-dreams no woman, ever.
As the RAC Foundation observes, “the dominance of the car as a mode of transport in the early years of the 21st Century is absolute.” Policymakers should recognise this fundamental fact and focus their attention on improving our roads, instead of actively putting roadblocks in the way of drivers. If traffic congestion were eased, there would surely be an immediate improvement in that productivity which politicians are always banging on about.
Being anti-motorist is misogyny, which a green low-carbon fig leaf can’t quite disguise. Conservatives are successful when they heed the concerns of women of middle Britain. It must be remembered that for many of these voters, possibly doing several short trips in a day, driving is essential, not a luxury. Most women are not Jeremy Clarkson-style petrolheads; their cars take them to work, their children to school and their elderly to the health centre.
Conservatives should leave it to Opposition parties to follow London’s Labour Mayor into an electoral cul-de-sac. The car, and the UK’s car industry, should be celebrated.