The Knowing Doing Gap

This essay addresses two major challenges confronting the road tranportation sector: reducing emissions and improving road safety. After energy production, the transportation sector is the second largest source of carbon emissions, accounting for about one quarter of all fossil fuel emissions. Three quarters of this is due to road transport. The huge task in reducing emissions is compounded by the expected rapid increase in the number of cars; their number is expected to more than double between now and 2020. As for highway safety, every year over one million people die in highway fatalities and they are the leading cause of death globally for those 15-19 years old. This essay argues that the task is to close the gap between what we know about these issues and what we are actually doing about them.