One of the Financial Times' Best Environment, Science, and Technology Books of the Year, 2025
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.
Roadkill: 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 book:
- 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 contexts: 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.
Praise for ROADKILL
"Bold, urgent, and utterly necessary. A must-read!"
-CARLOS MORENO, Author of The 15-Minute City, Associate Professor at the Paris IAE-Panthéon Sorbonne University, Scientific Director of the ETI Chair
"I love this book. A beautiful mix of philosophy, science, public health, and activism. A blueprint for a better world."
-DR. CHRIS VAN TULLEKEN, Physician, Television Presenter, and Author of Ultra-Processed People
"Beautifully engineered, high speed, elegant, fully customised demolition of our self-destructive and often irrational love affair with the car."
-LAURIE TAYLOR, Sociologist and Host of BBC Radio 4's Thinking Allowed programme
"This book makes the compelling case for a mindset shift about car dependency and the myths we've been sold about freedom. If reading it doesn't change your mind, you just don't want it to change."
-BRENT TODERIAN, City Planner, Global Advisor on Better Cities, and former Chief Planner for Vancouver, Canada
"Original, powerful, and persuasive."
-LORD NICHOLAS STERN, Professor at the London School of Economics, Chairman of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, and Author of The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change
"The book we need now. Essential reading for anyone who cares about the future of our cities."
-PROFESSOR RICHARD FLORIDA, Author of The Rise of the Creative Class
"Eye-opening and engaging, this book will change the way you see every road, parking lot, and traffic jam."
-KONGJIAN YU, Dean and Professor at Peking University College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, "Sponge City" inventor, and Founder of Turenscape
