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Cars should be banned near schools to tackle air pollution, says public health chief

by hawkinspeter
Mon, Mar 11, 2019 12:13
33

From https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/cars-should-be-banned-ne...

Quote:

Professor Paul Cosford, director for health protection and medical director of PHE, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I’m a doctor, I see a figure of 35,000 to 40,000 people each year dying as a result of the harm that is caused by air pollution.

“And what I also see is that the technologies are available, the things that we need to do we know about, so this is a matter of how we take this issue as seriously as we need to and how we move the technologies and the planning and all of that into reality so we actually deal with this problem for us and for future generations.”

Asked about a proposal to ban cars from the school run, he said: “I do think that if we consider this to be an issue of future generations, for our children, let’s have a generation of children brought up free from the scourge and the harms of air pollution.

“And that does then take you to ‘What can we do about making sure schools are at least as clean as possible?’

“We should stop idling outside schools, we should make sure that children can walk or cycle to school, and we should make sure that schools work with their parents about how they can do their best for this.”

Calling for a culture change, he said: “If we were having a conversation about 30,000 people dying each year because of a polluted water supply, I think we would have a very different conversation. It would be about ‘What do we need to do now and how quickly can we do it?’.”

Edit: Also seen this article from The Independent about shipping's toxic fumes, though that's "only" 3000 early deaths: https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/ship-air-pollution-deaths-uk-a...

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33 comments

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hawkinspeter replied to Natrix | 5 years ago
8 likes

Natrix wrote:

ha, ha, can't even stop the school run mums from parking on double yellow lines and stopping on the yellow zig zags so can't see this being enforced...........

It'd be trivially easy to enforce this if there was the political will.

My favourite solution would be to enable kids/teachers to submit photos/videos of poorly parked/idling vehicles to a parking authority and receive some kind of reward for each one that leads to a successful prosecution/fine. It would literally pay for itself.

Avatar
hawkinspeter | 5 years ago
1 like

Also on the BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47520848

(though the BBC misses out the bit about cycling/walking to school)

Avatar
Legs_Eleven_Wor... replied to hawkinspeter | 5 years ago
11 likes

HawkinsPeter wrote:

Also on the BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47520848

(though the BBC misses out the bit about cycling/walking to school)

'Schools should have "no idling zones"'.

Great.  Another law that no one can afford to enforce.  As such, it will be completely ignored.

Because well, you know ... 'Labour overspent so austerity is the Tories just cleaning up Labour's mess'.  No money for police or council to go to every school.  

Fast forward six months to a year, and a father who takes his children to school by bicycle will remonstrate with one of the mothers sitting in a Lexus SUV with her engine ticking over.  The woman - complete with orange tan and tramp stamp - will get out and threaten to punch the cyclist.  There will be a parent there who will record the altercation on her Samsung phone.

Two days later, the video will be on the Daily Mail website.  Scroll down to the comments. 

  1. 'Cyclist's think they own the fück1ng road'
  2. 'When they pay road tax, they can start to complain'
  3. 'Opens his mouth to me like that and I'll put him in A&E'
  4. 'Isnt he brave, taking on a single mother like that?'
  5. 'Unless this government does something to stop these lycra vigilante's..'
  6. 'Maybe he should learn what a red light means before giving lesson's to other's'
  7. 'Cyclist's are road lice and their they're worse enemy!'
  8. 'I'd of called the police on the entitled wanker'

And so on and so forth.  

Plus ça change, mes amis.  

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