Automobiles

Automobiles are wheeled and powered vehicles of various designs that have become hugely popular around the world for personal transportation, leisure, and status. Huge numbers of automobiles have been produced in the century since their first appearance, and they have had enormous effects on urban and suburban lifestyles, distribution of goods and services, the demand for oil and the global political system, and also on the environment. As large tracts of ground are placed under road tarmac, thousands of people are killed or injured yearly, and large amounts of gases are burned in the engines and released.

Automobiles are generally powered by petroleum or similar products derived from oil, which is burned under controlled conditions in an engine chamber, which then drives cranks that turn the wheels. This basic system is made greatly more complex by the addition of numerous systems and sub-systems that range from air conditioning to satellite guidance systems to safety features. The various configurations of systems, together with stylistic and engine power characteristics, contribute to a range of products that vary significantly in both size and cost. Automobiles have tended to become safer, larger, and more powerful as time has passed.

In countries where suburban lifestyles enable people to occupy comparatively large living areas and roads to match, the negative impacts of personal use of automobiles are not always easy to detect. However, in some developing countries, where road systems may be narrow, disorganized, and poorly maintained, the regular and very heavy traffic jams are very striking and very obviously produce negative effects in terms of noise and air pollution, deterioration of the road system, and also great inefficiencies in the use of time that strongly impact social, family, and working life. These problems have been slightly eased in recent years with the provision of some limited public mass transportation schemes. Additional measures to regulate traffic have included the imposition of tolls, such as the Congestion Charge levied in central London, and the permitting of entry only for odd or even numbered registration plates on consecutive days. However, the number of deaths and injuries continues to mount.

Although most countries enforce strict limits on drinking alcohol while driving, these limits are not always policed effectively and this, together with reckless driving, poor road safety conditions, and the sheer weight of traffic, has led to a situation in which some 1.2 million people are killed annually around the world, with another 50 million injured, and these figures are set to increase by 60 percent by 2020 based on current trends and as the ability of people in developing countries to purchase their own automobiles increases.