Suffocating in Traffic

Credits
Year: 2017
Running Time: 51 mins
Production: NZZ Format, 3SAT
Broadcast: SRF 1 / 3 SAT
Director: Cristina Karrer, Patricia Wagner
Camera: Patricia Wagner, Cristina Karrer
Editor: Patricia Wagner
Music: Ramon Kramer
Producer: NZZ Formt, Silvia Fleck, 3SAT

The number of cars worldwide increases by one every second. Already, drivers in Los Angeles and Moscow spend approximately 100 hours a year sitting in traffic. By 2050 the global population will have risen to ten billion and there will be some three billion cars worldwide. However, neither the growing mega cities in Asia nor the poorer regions of Africa have road networks that can cope with such numbers. The consequence will be mega traffic jams and potentially complete traffic melt-downs. While car ownership is steadily decreasing in industrialised countries, the use of motor vehicles in developing countries, where the car is still seen as a status symbol, is rising sharply. According to the UN, twenty years from now, the number of people killed in car crashes in Africa will rise above the number of those who die from Aids, tuberculosis and war combined. Does this mean we should rip the steering wheel from people’s hands? Are driverless cars the solution, or will we all just take to the air with the help of drones?

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