BMJ  2004;329:1237 (20 November), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7476.1237

Letter

Promoting walking and cycling as an alternative to using cars

Vested interests doom puny healthcare interventions

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—Ogilvy et al's systematic review on promoting walking and cycling as an alternative to using cars treats motoring as if it were a disease that can be cured, without examining the social forces that lead to car use.1 The effects they find in their review are hardly surprising, given the social currents opposing them: car advertising, predict and provide road planning, the giant car "park," and other horrors of surburbia. Big business and big government alike have a vested interest in its continued growth.

Those who have bought into this motor dependent lifestyle can be trusted to extend the infliction of motor tyranny on everyone else: motorists object to being taxed, although they are major polluters, or confined by speed limits, although they killed 3508 people in Britain last year.

Credit: STEPHEN SHEFFIELD/PHOTONICA

I try to undermine this metal carapaced horde. Any driver suffering from a condition in . . . [Full text of this article]

Douglas J Carnall, general practitioner

London E8 1AJ dougie@navarino.org.uk


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Relevant Article

Promoting walking and cycling as an alternative to using cars: systematic review
David Ogilvie, Matt Egan, Val Hamilton, and Mark Petticrew
BMJ 2004 329: 763. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Rapid Responses:

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bmj obstructs science
Douglas Carnall
bmj.com, 21 Jan 2005 [Full text]
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