Cycling UK Forum

It depends which pollutants you are most sensitive to. If it is hydrocarbons then activated carbon filter masks can help quite a lot. AFAIK currently available cycling masks won't do much against NOx

The BBC report above misses some details (what a surprise?)

From the Guardian:

Stephens was also made to undergo rehabilitation, 150 hours of unpaid work and told to pay compensation of £1,000 to each victim and an extra £120 to Manley for his damaged helmet.

As a sentence actually not too bad....

Cant understand why people convicted of road rage aren't compelled to have some sort of psychological assessment before being allowed to drive again.

This moron has responded to a rude hand gesture with extreme physical violence, who is to say next time someone challenges his ego he won't decide to use his vehicle as the weapon?

Vorpal wrote:
...Whilst getting more people to switch to electric helps a little, and it helps a lot at street level, getting people to drive less overall is still necessary. If draconian measures are okay for getting rid of diesels, then they are okay for reducing driving.

Who has argued against getting people to drive less? Not me that's for sure, I'd definitely vote for those draconian measures but in a democracy.....anyway, reducing the amount of driving wouldn't necessarily get roadside air pollution under control if there remained a high proportion of dirty diesels....

According to my very rough calculation 4kW of solar panels on an average UK roof could provide around 100 miles of E-motoring every 4 days...

Circa 9,000 miles per year ; seems not too bad...

Based on:
Typical Nissan Leaf consumption = 38kWh/100miles
Typical Annual Production from UK 4kW rooftop solar PV installation = 3400kWh/year or 9.3kWh/day

Can you imagine all that happening in the UK?

Well I don't find it any more unlikely than draconian anti-car measures, which would be your only chance to get air pollution under control without specifically targeting the worst polluters.

If you could reduce the total number of vehicles by 25% (how long would that take?) we would still have illegal levels of roadside air pollution thanks to the (still) high proportion of dirty diesels

Vorpal wrote:

Mark R wrote:

The problem is excessive vehicle use. Don't become distracted by what vehicle.

Are you talking about climate change and global warming? If so yes I agree: petrol vs diesel = utterly irrelevant

If however we are talking about dangerous, illegal levels of air pollution in UK cities, in particular NOx emissions, then I am afraid diesel vehicles are far and away the biggest problem. An inconvenient truth for diesel enthusiasts everywhere.

But it doesn't help just to get people to switch. It only delays the problem, and possibly makes it much, much worse than people merely dying prematurely, which they have been doing as a direct result of pollution since the industrial revolution.

If action were taken to get more people walking cycling and using public transport, we do more to address dangerous levels of pollution than just getting drivers to trade in their diesels for petrol vehicles can ever do.

Why present a binary choice between diesel and petrol when this is blatantly inaccurate and misleading?

The reality is a choice between diesel and petrol, lpg, cng, various types of hybrid, electric.... In Norway almost 30% of new car sales in 2016 were electric or hybrid...

What makes you think that getting the worst polluters off the road asap would be an impediment to investment on active travel and public transport?

Surely getting the air quality sorted out quickly makes walking and cycling a far easier sell as the healthy option?

ian s wrote:... the "greens" who clearly want the whole world to revert to the dark ages.....

yeah that's one way of looking at it I suppose , others might argue what the 'greens' really want is to consign obsolete technologies like the internal combustion engine to the dustbin of history asap and get on with rolling out some more modern, clean transport solutions

...Lets face it, urban air quality is vastly better than it was only 50 years ago, even more so 100 years ago...

Yep, that's because we've gone from coal to gas for domestic heating, outsourced most of our manufacturing pollution to China and mandated the 3 way catalyst for petrol engines. If it wasn't for the damage being done by diesel engines we wouldn't have these dangerous, illegal levels of roadside pollution.

The problem is excessive vehicle use. Don't become distracted by what vehicle.

Are you talking about climate change and global warming? If so yes I agree: petrol vs diesel = utterly irrelevant

If however we are talking about dangerous, illegal levels of air pollution in UK cities, in particular NOx emissions, then I am afraid diesel vehicles are far and away the biggest problem. An inconvenient truth for diesel enthusiasts everywhere.

I must say I'm also puzzled by this. The cynic in me also wonders if reports like this are politically motivated. If all private motorists use petrol cars the Government would receive a very noticeable increase in tax revenue whilst businesses would still be able to use lower cost diesel engines.

I don't know how closely you have been following this issue but the UK government is coming under ever increasing pressure to actually do something proactive about the diesel problem. The only thing which is politically motivated is their steadfast refusal to actually get to grips with the problem...

One thing is for sure: there is absolutely zero chance of getting air pollution below the legal limits without tackling the scourge of diesel cars and vans.

Consider the fact that in 2016 there were 1,285,160 new diesel powered cars sold, up from 1,276,871 in 2015.

Source: http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_round_up/2988498/london_breaches_air_pollution_limit_for_all_2017.html

Imagine what the emissions of those shiny new 2016 year oil burners will be like in 7 or 8 years time with a bit of wear and tear on them - pretty feral is my guess. Unfortunately this problem is going to get a lot worse unless something fairly radical is done...

The only thing which gives me some hope is the fact that this issue now makes it into the mainsteam news at least every couple of weeks whereas in the past is was rarely mentioned. Heres hoping people will get angry enough to force some change.

[XAP]Bob wrote:Round here I can't tell most diesels except by their badge...

Of course the older ones which haven't been maintained and are being driven by chimps are the obvious exception.

Strange, my experience is almost the exact opposite....

Very, very occasionally I am pleasantly surprised by a TDI badged vehicle which doesn't leave a stench in the air, unfortunatly this is a rare thing and almost all stink- that characteristic throat catching diesel hydrocarbon smell mixed with the acidic tang of the NOx gases - spoils my enjoyment of active travel terribly

mjr wrote:

al_yrpal wrote:Heres our 'woodburner', except its balanced flu fueled by bottled gas. Amusing when people come in and admire it asuming its a woodburner. Came in very useful when our boiler packed up a few weeks ago. 4kw output kept the whole house fairly toasty. Will be very useful when we get those rotating power cuts coming soon.

As far as I know, no particulates.

Except for all those produced by the many (ObTopic: mostly diesel) engines used to transport the gas, bottle it, transport it again, then take the empties away! Plus then you've got all the planet-harming drawbacks of carbon release from the fuel itself.

It's funny that people install things in the belief they are helping the populace whilst poisoning the populace.

Seems a bit spurious - why talk about the transport and pumping emissions of the LPG supply chain whilst failing to mention the fact that wood also has to be transported (unless of course you live next to the plantation). In any case most firewood is currently processed using two-stroke petrol engined chainsaws which make even diesel engines seem surgically clean....carcinogenic benzine emissions anyone?

Lovely crisp winter day here in Devon. Difficult to enjoy it though because some ~@}{~:L:$ has seen fit to light a garden bonfire stinking out the whole neighbourhood

The cause of the accident seems to be at least 75% incompetent driving. Anyone experienced would already be in a suitably low gear before the hill starts to get steep. If you miss a gearchange on a steep decline you can end up stuck in neutral and out of control even without a prexisting brake fault.

Heavily loaded vehicle + extremely steep hill means you absolutely must not rely just on the wheel brakes to keep your speed down - a basic principle surely?

Incredible that the driver gets to keep his licence...

WRT which vehicles seem to be the worst polluters - my list would be:

Coaches
Busses
Taxis
Vans
Cars
HGVs

In pretty much that order. Having said that, there are a lot more cars on the road than anything else.

IMO vans tend to be a bit worse than cars with the two worst offending models which always seem to stink horribly - yuk: