Additionally, there are indirect societal costs such as the costs of maintaining roads and other infrastructure, pollution, public health costs of pollution, health care costs due to accidents, and the cost of finally disposing of the vehicle at the end of its life. The ability for humans to move rapidly from place to place has far reaching implications for the nature of our society.

People can now live far from their workplaces, the design of our cities is determined as much by the need to get vehicles into and out of the city as the nature of the buildings and public spaces within the city.

High transportation fuel prices have not seriously reduced car usage but do make it more expensive. One environmental benefit of high fuel prices is that it is an incentive for the production of more efficient (and hence less polluting) car designs - i.e. hybrid vehicles - and the development of alternative fuels. At the beginning of 2006, 1 liter of gasoline cost approximately US$0.60 in the United States and in Germany and other European countries nearly US$1.80. With fuel prices at these levels there is a strong incentive for consumers to purchase lighter, smaller, more fuel-efficient cars, or to simply not drive.

These changes are resisted by those with an interest in maintaining the massive economy of car culture. Individual mobility is highly prized in dominant societies so the demand for automobiles is still strong.

Alternative individual modes of transport, such as Personal rapid transit, cycling, walking, skating, and organised cargo movement, could serve as an alternative to automobiles if they prove to be socially accepted.