I recently read a book about the history of cars in my country [0], and how they came to dominate. It's quite astonishing how quickly we went from the streets belonging to the people, to the few privileged owning a car taking all that space. In 1920, 15 pedestrians were killed with only 2000 cars in the country. Instead of that being a killing blow to the cars, the rich people owning cars organized. They had power and stood together, and managed to make it so that it was "uncultured people walking in the road getting run over". Some of these organizations still exist today, like Trygg Trafikk ("Safe Traffic"), and they're true to their roots: they're not really advocating for less traffic deaths, they're advocating for making it easier to drive everywhere in the guise of promoting "safety".
[0]: Et land på fire hjul, by Ulrik Eriksen