Ontological Security and Private Car Use in Sydney, Australia

Abstract

Successful promotion of alternative transport modes needs to be underpinned by better understandings of a seemingly cemented collective preference for private car use. This paper contributes to these understandings and proposes that automobility's dominance can be explained by a series of benefits intimately linked to the car. These benefits extend beyond those associated with utilitarian factors such as saving time. The concept of ontological security is used to propose that attachments to the private car are underpinned by an innate desire for predictability, autonomy and acceptance in modern lives increasingly characterised by insecurity. Empirical evidence on the journey to work in Australia's largest city, Sydney, is applied to examine the way mobility is practised and inform the paper's central proposition.