We need to stop shaping our lives around cars

There were 131,356 new cars registered last year, well up on the 80,000 or so registrations in the recession years. Our love affair with cars is well and truly steaming once more. But we don’t just like cars as a form of transport. For some, they are driven as an outward signal of our prosperity and success.

Eleven years ago, the then German ambassador to Ireland Christian Pauls addressed a meeting of German ...