"That prized garage space or curbside spot you’ve been yearning for may be costing you—and the city—in ways you never realized. A journey into the world of parking, where meter maids are under siege, everybody’s on the take, and the tickets keep on coming." A great article explaining some of the reasons why city planning there has led to Los Angeles being quite so car-centric.

"A total of 36,371 people were killed on Britain's roads between 1999 and 2010."

Peter Wilby in the Guardian on cars, fatalities, and the coalition Government's messages to motorists.

"For 53 hours, workers will shut a portion of “the 405”. The stretch is not long—ten miles northbound and four miles southbound—but it is strategic." "A European might ask why people don’t bicycle instead, or take a bus or train." Oh, those silly Europeans!

"our own history -- let alone a tour of other parts of the world -- reveals a different reality. Across cultures, over thousands of years, people have traditionally built places scaled to the individual. It is only the last two generations that we have scaled places to the automobile."

From the article: “In the United States, there has been much more of a tendency to adapt cities to accommodate driving,” said Peder Jensen, head of the Energy and Transport Group at the European Environment Agency. “Here there has been more movement to make cities more livable for people, to get cities relatively free of cars.”

"The safest places to drive in the USA are Washington, D.C., and Massachusetts. Among the most dangerous: Montana, Wyoming, Louisiana and Mississippi. Those conclusions are based on federal data of traffic fatalities per 100,000 population and per 100 million miles driven."

"Validated traffic count data. Counts taken at road sites across GB, each lasting 12 hours on a weekday between March and October outside of school holiday periods. The counts take place on one day of the year so are not representative of the typical flow throughout the year." Coo. (As mentioned at OpenTech.)

A visually striking (but as migusrki points out, somewhat fiddly to use) site about the interaction of London's Elephant and Castle with the post-war rebuilding, whose planning was informed by the advent of mass motoring. There's some interesting interplay with the City's highwalks in here.

"Forget about buses and trains. The car is the real form of public transport in this country." Well, it transports the public, yes, but surely 'public transport' is not, well, privately owned? Anyway, quibbles aside, this has links to the full report PDF.

"The rapid growth in the use of cars over the last century appears to have halted, although the UK remains "car-reliant", the RAC Foundation says." "A decrease in weekly mileage in the decade to 2006 may have been due to more people travelling abroad, increased congestion putting people off, and better public transport in some urban areas."

Jonathan Glancey: "In an age in which even the Mini is a big car – have you ever seen one parked next to an original, Issigonis-designed Mini? – and every new car is much faster than anyone ever needs it to be, how many of the world's rapidly growing band of motorists will be all that interested in Ban and Hara's bonsai cars?"

"Has the G-Wiz had its day? Sales of electric cars are down by a huge 58 per cent and the Nice Car Company, one of two electric car distributors in London, has gone into administration, it was announced this week." "Many motorists have decided to defer eletric-car purchases until the industry decides exactly where it's going."