Roadkill: Unveiling the True Cost of Our Toxic Relationship with Cars

by Henrietta L. Moore, Arthur Kay

Explore the financial, social, ethical, and environmental impacts of our obsession with, and dependency on, cars. Learn how to change the way we use them.

Unveiling the True Cost of Our Toxic Relationship with Cars, by Professor Henrietta Moore and Arthur Kay, explores the philosophical implications of car culture, as well as the practical impacts it has on your money, your taxes, your neighborhood, your planet, your health, and your happiness.

While the car has been marketed as a symbol of “freedom”, the authors convincingly argue that it has limited the flourishing of our cities and restricted our choices. How can we fix our toxic relationship with cars? The authors offer a new way of thinking that promises to multiply your choices, improve your city, and expand your freedoms.

Inside the

Jaw-dropping, real-world examples of the human and monetary costs imposed by cars, including the fact that cars have killed 60 to 80 million people since their invention, more than the deaths of WWI and WWII combined. Philosophical arguments explaining how car-centric cities restrict the freedoms of drivers and non-drivers alike. A catalogue of ideas and approaches for urban designers, transport planners, policymakers, and mayors. Practical recommendations for all for you, your family, your neighborhood, your town or city, and your national government. Critiques of the myths around electric cars and autonomous cars, providing readers with a comprehensive understanding of the implications of this emerging frontier. Ideas on how we can re-frame our relationship with the car? The authors recognize they can be useful machines, when used intentionally, and thoughtfully invited into our lives. Over 45 figures, original illustrations, diagrams, and colour photographs.
Roadkill is a persuasive and illuminating call to action for city dwellers, drivers, environmentalists, urbanists, and policymakers—anyone interested in practical ways to improve your life and expand your freedoms.

Genres: Audiobook

304 pages, Hardcover

Published September 16, 2025

About the author

Henrietta L. Moore is a British social anthropologist. She is the William Wyse Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge and Director of the Culture and Communications Programme at the Centre for the Study of Global Governance at the London School of Economics (LSE). Previously Moore was a Governor of the LSE; LSE Deputy Director for research and external relations 2002-2005, and served as the Director of the Gender Institute at the LSE from 1994-1999.

Reviews

[Pete Markos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Roadkill is a genuinely excellent and important book. Arthur Kay does a brilliant job of exposing just how deeply broken our transport system has become, particularly in how car dependency disproportionately harms the poorest in society. Even having seen some of these statistics before, seeing them clearly laid out — especially the share of income swallowed up by car ownership — is both sobering and powerful.

What I appreciated most is that this isn’t a book about bikes versus cars in a simplistic sense. It’s about power, choice, and structural inequality — and how transport policy quietly shapes people’s lives, finances, health, and freedom.

One broader reflection the book prompted for me (and this isn’t a criticism — more a gap in the wider discourse) is how narrowly active travel is often framed publicly. Much of the messaging focuses on net zero and climate targets, which are important, but I think we miss a huge opportunity by not also emphasising how cycling delivers personal autonomy: control over your time, freedom from spiralling costs, reduced reliance on the state, and obvious benefits to physical health and vitality. Framed this way, active travel isn’t a moral obligation — it’s an empowering, individual choice.

Given the current culture-war framing around cycling and ideas like 15-minute cities, Roadkill feels especially timely. It cuts through the noise with evidence, clarity, and humanity.

[Igor Pejic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Roadkill is a provocative critique of the car-centric mindset that has dominated urban life for a century. Kay and Moore argue that while the car has been marketed as the ultimate symbol of individual freedom, the reality is quite the opposite: our total dependency on automobiles has actually restricted our choices, drained our finances, and harmed our physical and mental health. The authors move beyond simple environmentalism to perform a deep philosophical and economic audit of how cars have shaped the cities we inhabit.
The authors also dismantle the popular myths that electric or autonomous vehicles will solve these problems; they point out that 60–70% of car-related air pollution actually comes from tire wear and brake dust rather than tailpipes. They argue that simply switching the fuel source doesn’t fix the fundamental issue of space.
Rather than a moralizing anti-car manifesto, Roadkill is a constructive call for a rebalancing of the 21st-century city. Drawing on examples from Barcelona’s superblocks to Jakarta’s electric scooter networks, the authors provide over 100 practical ideas for urban designers and citizens to reclaim their streets. They suggest that true freedom in the modern age isn’t the ability to sit in a traffic jam in a zero-emission vehicle, but the freedom to live in a walkable, breathable neighborhood where the car is an intentional tool rather than a mandatory default.
Roadkill is a meticulously researched roadmap (and a great book title), but the reason I included it on the list is another one. Like other books on the list, it challenges conventional wisdom and explains that while technological progress will happen, the way it will happen is not an inevitability. Don’t fall for the things that are “a given,” even if - especially if - they are also government-mandated. There is no shortcut for doing your research and exposing yourself to contrarian viewpoints.

This review is originally published within the Money Book Circle in my newsletter. Sign up here for regular reviews of the hottest books on money and technology: https://igorpejic.substack.com/

[Simon Harrison · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's plenty of useful information in here on the ill effects of mass car ownership and some practical solutions but it's weaker on the causes of the cultural attachments and addressing thinking and behaviour. I struggled to get the following out of my head: a member of Oxford's Council, putting forward the 15-minute City, had to first state that he is not a lizard, nor from another planet. The authors put forward Kant's and Rawls' thinking on freedom as ways out, and the book even ends on this point. It might be valid but it will appeal to few, and alienate many. Here in the UK, the pavements are emptying, people are getting fatter and are losing the ability to move themselves short distances. We need to be blunter in addressing our addictions to corporate interests than Kant allows.
Sorry. Half this book needs a rethink and a rewrite.