LSE IQ | Intelligent questions with social science answers · LSE Podcasts

Do we need to drive?

·29 min

LSE IQ starts with the blunt arithmetic of car travel in the UK. It notes that the country covered more than 250 billion miles by car last year. The episode contrasts commuter habits across England with the much lower share of car use in London. It then grounds the discussion in a personal example from a two-mile drive in a 2014 Corsa. That short trip is used to show how fast emissions pile up. The quick calculation lands at about 350 grams of carbon, roughly the same as boiling a kettle five times. The show folds that figure into a larger reminder that cars account for 90% of transport emissions. From there it asks a direct question about whether driving is really necessary. A recent move from London to a pretty rural part of the UK gives the question practical weight. The discussion then turns to why an empty bus lane is not wasted space. An expert explains that a bus can move far more people than a line of private cars in the same amount of time. The episode makes that point more concrete by translating bus capacity into simple passenger counts. It shows how even a small shift from bus riders to car drivers can quickly create congestion. The same logic is applied to cycling. Bike lanes can look underused unless they are compared with the amount of traffic they prevent. The episode also broadens the lens to parking and public space. It treats street space as limited and heavily contested rather than neutral. That changes the way traffic jams and lane debates look from the roadside. The show’s argument is that more space for cars does not automatically mean smoother movement. It also suggests that the frustration people feel in traffic often comes from misunderstanding how much room different transport modes really require. The episode then reaches into the future of mobility with driverless cars. It asks whether they would make rural parts of the UK easier to get to. At the same time, it is wary of handing over every meaningful moment of travel to machines. The closing note keeps the human scale in view, pointing out that getting into a kayak, a bike, a glider, or a car can still matter as an experience. The result is a measured case for thinking about transport as a question of space, evidence, and choice rather than habit alone.

As heard by us

A clear case for seeing car dependence as a space problem as much as a travel habit.

LSE IQ treats a plain transport question with a useful amount of focus: how much driving is actually necessary once commuting patterns, emissions, and rural access are all part of the picture?

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Why you'd press play

If you want to rethink what roads are really for.

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