Driving and passengering: notes on the ordinary organisation of car travel

Abstract

We spend ever increasing periods of our lives travelling in cars, yet quite what it is we do while travelling, aside from driving the vehicle itself, is largely overlooked. Drawing on analyses of video records of a series of quite ordinary episodes of car travel, in this findings paper we begin to document what happens during journeys. The material concentrates on situations where people are travelling together in order to examine how social units such as families or relationships such as colleagues or friends are reassembled and re-organised in the small scale spaces that are car interiors. Particular attention is paid to the forms of conversation occurring during car journeys and the manner in which they are complicated by seating and visibility arrangements. Finally the article touches upon the unusual form of hospitality which emerges in car sharing.