Abstract
This paper presents some empirical evidence on the psycho-social benefits people seem to derive from their cars based on in-depth interviews with a sample of car owners and non-car owners in the West of Scotland. We suggest that psycho-social benefits of protection, autonomy and prestige may help to ex-plain people's attachment to cars and also why studies have found consistently that car owners are healthier than non-car owners. In our study cars were seen to provide protection from undesirable people events, and a comfortable cocoon (but not as providing protection against accidents). Cars provided autonomy because car use was seen as being more convenient, reliable and providing access to more destinations than public transport. Cars were seen to confer prestige and other socially desirable attributes such as competence, skill and masculinity. We think that it is important for policy makers to consider how to make public transport more attractive by increasing its potential to provide similar sorts of benefits, and to do so by targeting the different needs of various population groups. 2001 Else vier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
In 1991, two-thirds of Britons lived in households with access to a car (Office of National Statistics, 1991) and during the 1990s the number of cars on our roads increased further (Glaister and Graham, 1996). Despite congestion and the threat cars pose to the environment (Walker,1996; Monbiot, 1999) and personal safety (Davis, 1993; Department of Health, 1999), Government plans to reduce cars have not been met with enthusiasm by the general public (Jinks,1997; Moorhead and McCaffrey, 1999; Watson, 2000). There is some evidence that cars may be associated with health independently of income, suggesting that cars themselves may have health promoting features (Macintyre et al., 1998;Macintyre et al, 2001), despite other forms of transport, such as walking and cycling, being associated with health benefits (McCarthy, 1999;Mutrie et al., 2000).
Macintyre et al. (1998) studied a stratified random sample of 1186 people with household car access and 522 without access in the West of Scotland. After taking into account age, sex and i


摘要
這篇論文呈現(xiàn)的是人們從他她們的汽車上獲得的心理和社會福利的一些實(shí)證性的證據(jù)，這些證據(jù)是他她們以蘇格蘭的西部一個汽車擁有者和非汽車擁有者的深入訪談的樣品為基礎(chǔ)而得出的。 我們認(rèn)為心理、社會福利的保障，自治和聲望可能幫助解釋人們?yōu)槭裁磳ζ嚨囊蕾?，以及一致地研究發(fā)現(xiàn)為什么汽車擁有者是比無汽車者更健康。 在研究中我們看到汽車提供保護(hù)免于接觸不受歡迎的人事件的, 和一個舒服的自我空間 ( 但是不當(dāng)作提供對抗意外事故的保護(hù)) 。汽車提供了更多的自主權(quán)，因為使用汽車看起來更加方便，可靠并且比公共汽車更加容易達(dá)到目的地。汽車還傳達(dá)了聲望和其他的在社會上令人想要的品質(zhì), 如能力，技能和男子氣概。 我們認(rèn)為決策者者考慮如何增加潛在的提供相類似的利益使公共交通工具變得更具吸引力是很重要的，這樣做，可以瞄準(zhǔn)各種不同人口群體的不同需要來達(dá)到這樣的目標(biāo)。另外2001個科技股份有限公司競爭版權(quán)所有。
1. 介紹
在 1991 年，三分之二的英國人家庭是擁有汽車的(國立統(tǒng)計學(xué)的辦公室,1991) ，而且在 1990 年代期間在我們的道路上行駛的汽車數(shù)字更進(jìn)一步增加。 (Glaister 和Graham,1996)。 盡管交通阻塞和汽車對環(huán)境污染(Walker, Monbiot,1999) 以及對人身安全造成的威脅 (Davis,1993； 衛(wèi)生署,1999), 政府減少汽車的計劃沒有得到公眾狂熱的歡迎 (Jinks,1997； Moorhead 和McCaffrey,1999； Watson,2000). 有證據(jù)顯示汽車可能與健康、獨(dú)立收入有關(guān), 這表明汽車本身可能有健康促進(jìn)的特征 (Macintyre 等人，1998； Macintyre 等人,2001),盡管像步行和騎腳踏車兜風(fēng)這樣的交通方式, 與健康有益是有關(guān)的(McCarthy,1999；Mutrie 等人,2000)。