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London's cars the most polluting in the country - but should cyclists be worried?

Pollution is a far bigger killer than traffic accidents according to new report

London is home to the country’s least fuel-efficient and polluting cars, a study has found.

The average car in the capital gives out out 176.95 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre – equivalent to around 40mpg.

By contrast, in Peterborough, the greenest city according to DVLA data, cars do 50 mpg and emit 142.03g/km.

In towns including St Albans and Brighton, Cambridge and Chelmsford, pollution levels have breached EU safety limits.

It’s bad news for cyclists in these cities who risk their health through breathing toxic fumes, as vehicle emissions in the worst ten cities are far in excess of the 128.3g/km average for new cars sold last year, according to figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.

However it’s even worse news for drivers. As we reported earlier this year, the most polluted part of the street is not on the pavements where pollution monitors are positioned, or at the road edges where cyclists ride. Instead, it's, inside cars themselves, according to a study.

Researchers at King’s College London used five MPs from the Government's Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) as guinea pigs in a study of London air pollution.

The MPs were set up with devices that measured airborne pollution and used GPS to record the location.

“Travelling in vehicles gave the greatest average exposure,” said Dr Ben Barratt, a senior air quality scientist at King’s who oversaw the research. “Among the worst was when the MPs got a taxi across London.”

The monitors measured the amount of microscopic carbon particles - produced largely by diesel engines - that the MPs inhaled. Inside taxis, they were found to have inhaled up to 50 million particles per breath.

Walking around Whitehall and Oxford Street, they inhaled 6-7 million particles per breath. At their destination, London's City Hall, levels fell to 3 million particles per breath.

As we recently reported, diesel vehicles are a major source of air pollution. The UK is  facing fines of up to £300 million per year from the European Commission for its failure to rein in emissions of nitrogen dioxide from diesels.

Governments were supposed to have reduced air pollution to “safe levels” by 2010. A five-year extension was granted to countries with problem areas, as long as they had “a credible and workable plan for meeting air-quality standards within five years of the original deadline” but Britain looks unlikely to hit the target in 2015.

According to a Confused.com OnePoll survey of 2,000 adults that found more than a third – 36 per cent - have no idea what their vehicle emits in CO2.

Despite that, more than half (52 per cent) consider it important to reduce emissions, although a third (33 per cent) cannot afford to buy a low emission car.

According to Confused.com, Department of Health figures estimate that 28,416 deaths in Great Britain in 2010 were attributable to particulate air pollution – largely from diesel vehicle exhaust emissions – including 3,389 in London alone.

“That ranks pollution as a far bigger killer than traffic accidents,' it said.

“To put it into context, Department for Transport figures state that there were 1,713 road deaths in all of Great Britain in 2013.

“It is estimated that, depending on the area, between 6 per cent and 9 per cent of deaths in London are caused by airborne man-made particles.”

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11 comments

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Dnnnnnn | 9 years ago
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Silly story - CO2 is a greenhouse gas, not a local pollutant, although the story conflates these two issues. A much bigger ground-level problem in London and other major cities (as other posters have said) is NOx and PM from diesel engines stuck in traffic.

And London's cars may be more CO2 intensive but there are fewer of them relative to the population, and car ownership is - uniquely in the UK - declining. Those with cars also use them less because they use alternative modes for many journeys, unlike in much of the country where everyone drives everywhere.

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Housecathst | 9 years ago
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No perlitical party will challenge the all powerful car lobby. its a fight their just not going to be able to win with the general public which demand to be able to drive everywhere and to be able park no more than 5 feet from where your going without having to pay anything for the privilege.

Until theses drivers see there own children dying from asthma and can put 2 and 2 together there just not going to change their ways.

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IanW1968 | 9 years ago
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Would it be possible to take legal action against the UK government for failing to provide safe air?

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turvy | 9 years ago
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The CO2 figures are a bit of a nonsense really. Soot from diesel is far worse in terms of health  31

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rggfddne replied to turvy | 9 years ago
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turvy wrote:

The CO2 figures are a bit of a nonsense really. Soot from diesel is far worse in terms of health  31

Indeed, pretty much no relation. Amongst other things, catalytic converters create CO2 in return for removing much nastier stuff. High CO2 rating means the vehicle is thermodynamically inefficient in the test cycle, no more. Poor reporting, really.

It's also not suprising: not only is the city wealthy so can afford fuel/VED, but given public transport, there are likely fewer low-CO2 cars, which lower the average even if they raise total pollution. The metric is flawed.

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MaxP | 9 years ago
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But it wont change.

England already owes a heck of a lot of cash to the EU for breaching the CO2 limit allocated to it.

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pmanc replied to MaxP | 9 years ago
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MaxP wrote:

England already owes a heck of a lot of cash to the EU for breaching the CO2 limit allocated to it.

I've read a lot about the fines and I wish someone could explain something to me. Surely the victims of UK pollution are the UK population, the exact same people who would suffer from a fine levied against the UK. It's like fining an old lady for getting mugged.

Surely the lazy ineffectual self-important politicians who have done sod all about it are the ones who should face the penalties? And given most of them are millionaires a fine is like water off a ducks back so I'm thinking a custodial sentence might be more in order. Something to hammer home the real life years lost due to their failure to act.

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Housecathst | 9 years ago
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I guess the only silver lining to this story is that there is a degree of natural selection going on with the car drivers sucking on each other's exhaut fumes like a vast human centipede

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jacknorell | 9 years ago
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Much of London's issue is because so much of the running time is effectively idling the engine. Running it at very low RPMs, and without load, is highly inefficient. The fuel doesn't fully burn, and leaves more particles.

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bikebot | 9 years ago
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I wonder if the reason London is so much worse, is because so much of the traffic is now white van man.

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Username replied to bikebot | 9 years ago
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bikebot wrote:

I wonder if the reason London is so much worse, is because so much of the traffic is now white van man.

WVM certainly but also horribly antiquated old-tech Land Rover engined black cabs, dirty (and very noisy) buses, and disgusting old soot-chucking minicabs which really shouldn't be on the roads. One passed me yesterday, a ten-year-old diesel Renault Scenic and even though it was only gently accelerating it was chucking out black horribleness like someone shovelling out soot.

Ban diesels now.

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