Our culturally maladaptive transport discourses are continuing to fail our children

Abstract

The private car, as a dominant form of everyday mobilities across Australia and around the globe, continues to create a significant level of social and spatial injustice. Children are disproportionally affected by such injustices, not just through the loss of their basic rights to roam their local environments freely and safely due to traffic safety concerns and being greatly susceptible to illnesses generated by car-inducing pollution and noise, but also through being at the greatest risk of being hit by drivers. Road crashes continue to be the leading cause of death for children globally and our current – and decades long – ways of dealing with road violence are inadequate and counter-productive as they distract from what actually needs to be done. Utilising Boyden’s framing of cultural maladaptation, this paper conceptualises current maladaptive transport discourses and discusses how they continue to harm the health and well-being of children. The paper highlights the need for the recognition of these maladaptive discourses, including our worldviews, languages and principles in order to replace them with new narratives which enable the transition to a future where children’s mobility needs and rights are honoured.

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