Externalities of cars
These externalities include factors such as air pollution, noise, traffic congestion, and road maintenance costs, which affect the broader community and environment.
Additionally, these externalities contribute to social injustice, as disadvantaged communities often bear a disproportionate share of these negative impacts.
Legislators and regulators can internalize those external costs, either by taxes on fuels for example, either by any kind of limitation to car usage, such as parking meters or urban tolls.
Nevertheless, in the majority of western nations, the external costs of driving, are not covered totally either by taxes, or by any kind of car usage limitation.
These externalities include factors such as air pollution, noise, traffic congestion, and road maintenance costs, which affect the broader community and environment.
Additionally, these externalities contribute to social injustice, as disadvantaged communities often bear a disproportionate share of these negative impacts.
[8] Cars produce numerous harmful air pollutants in their exhaust such as NOx, particulate matter and ground-level ozone (indirectly).
In Germany, 2.9% of myocardial infarction cases can be attributed to road traffic noise, with the 1.5% of the population exposed to greater than 75 dB(A) accounting for 27.13% of that.
Typically, once agricultural or uncultivated land is turned over into ever wider motorways and ever larger parking lots to accommodate the automobile but induced demand means any relief is temporary and more and more surfaces are sealed in the process.
In addition to the fertile topsoil often "buried" under freeways and parking spaces, cars directly or indirectly release pollutants into the soil.
Similarly, salt is often used to keep roads and highways free of snow and ice and chlorides cause major damage to vegetation as well as being an aggressive substance linked to rust and corrosion.
For developed countries this causes a political dependence on a reliable petroleum supply and has been cited as the reason for foreign policy decisions of the United States among others.
For developing countries, petroleum products can be among the chief imports and reliance on automobiles can significantly impact the trade deficit and public debt of such nations.
By increasing the cost of using automobiles, it is possible to reduce consumption to an economically optimal level[citation needed] while raising tax revenue.
By incentivizing consumers to reduce their purchases of petrol vehicles in favour of electric cars, there is a decrease in negative externalities associated with emissions.
This is an important piece in regulating automobile externalities, as emission levels per litre of gasoline consumed are not reduced by fuel taxes.
[citation needed] Notwithstanding the above objections, some authors enumerate positive externalities for the automobile like accessibility and land value.
The clustering of firms and workers in cities generates positive externalities by allowing for labor market pooling, input sharing, and knowledge spillovers.
