
Cars are killing us. Within 10 years, we must phase them out - ingve
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/07/cars-killing-us-driving-environment-phase-out
======
grecy
I've been driving around Africa for almost three years now, and every time I
go into a city I can't help but think along the same lines as this article.

I see tens of thousands of vehicles belching huge clouds of black smoke,
idling for hours at a time with nobody inside, or stuck in soul crushing
traffic. Just the other day it took a hour to drive five miles with tens of
thousands of vehicles packed in.

It's also really easy to see the direct environmental impact - any place that
does oil changes or repairs tires is surrounded by a huge patch of jet black
earth where the waste products are simply tossed on the ground. Used tires are
piled high, and crashed or burnt out vehicles commonly litter the roadside. In
the first world we hide all of that from sight, sometimes I think it's better
to have it out in the open so we can be more aware of what is really going on.

~~~
futureastronaut
> In the first world we hide all of that from sight

There's no hiding. The cars are much cleaner with lower emissions. We have
industrial pollution laws so auto shops have to safely dispose of waste. We
don't leave burnt out cars on the roadside. You can add chaos to anything to
make that thing look bad.

Also I hope you see the irony in your comment starting with

> I've been driving around Africa for almost three years now

~~~
davvolun
I don't think that's really "ironic," and I don't just mean as a pedantic
"what is the definition of irony" thing. The easiest way to see the problems
with, say, airline travel is to travel by airlines. I don't know about
"Africa" (and, what part of Africa -- last I heard, Africa is a pretty big
place...), but in most places in the U.S., like it or not, you would very
likely not be able to make a living without a personal vehicle.

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headmelted
I keep coming back to this same bug bear every time the topic of cars and
pollution comes up, but... diesels.

There's a practice here (UK) of buying diesels for the increased fuel economy,
then having the particulate filters removed (discreetly, leaving the casing in
place to hide the work) to reduce maintenance costs. Most garages offer this
as a service openly, and it's common practice.

The cars are very easy to spot as the exhaust belches huge clouds of thick
black smoke every time they accelerate.

The irony of this is that a great many of the cars currently on the road here
are dirtier than cars that were banned twenty years ago for that same reason.
The point being that we're not just not fixing the problem - we're actively
going backwards.

I don't take my son to school through the car park (the most direct route)
anymore for this reason. Most parents drive 4x4s which they idle there while
parked. The smell alone is eye-watering, not to mention the smoke.

The point is that people just don't care. They don't care about their own
kids' health, so of course they don't care about anyone elses.

Anyone I've discussed this with offline think it's silly to be bothered by
this or I'm over-reacting, because (and I don't have the science to back this
up) the world's getting progressively more stupid and (ob)noxious over time.

~~~
Hates_
The changes to the MOT test last year should result in that being a major
failure:

    
    
      Your vehicle will get a major fault if the MOT tester:
    
        * can see smoke of any colour coming from the exhaust
        * finds evidence that the DPF has been tampered with

~~~
headmelted
I saw this, but I was disheartened when I was told by a mechanic not long back
that this too is seen as a bit of a joke - in that the cars are tested at idle
and the DPF check is cosmetic.

Hoping for sanity, though.

------
HenryBemis
I lived most of my life in capitals. I cannot but notice the pattern. Smog,
asthma, bad skin, and other air-related maladies. Since to 'drop cars' is not
just not feasible, the next best thing, which is already happening, is to
switch to electric vehicles and continue phasing out fossil fuel(s) as soon as
possible (which is NOT 'tomorrow').

Once electric vehicles technology and cost strike a good balance, then I
believe most people would go for an elecric vehicle. Legislation/regulations
also help speed things up.

~~~
tallanvor
Exhaust is a huge component of the pollution, but simply switching to electric
vehicles isn't enough because you still have additional particulate matter
generated by them - especially rubber particles from the tires.

We need to both switch to electric vehicles and significantly cut down on the
number of vehicles on the road.

~~~
dingaling
Noise is also a contaminant. The tyre roar from Q7 and X5 at speed is painful
in my ears as a pedestrian or cyclist. But the drivers neither know not care
in their insulated metal boxes.

And how many years of life are lost due to inadequate sleep as a result of
24/7 road noise?

Perhaps we need a regulation that interior vehicle noise needs to match
external noise measured at kerbside.

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laalf
First of all: public transport sucks in too many places of the world. Going to
work by public transport takes double the time and is anything but enjoyable
because the trains are filled to the point where some people are happy to even
get in on exceptional days. And lets not forget that if i miss my bus, the
next one that makes sense to take is an hour later. No thanks. Second: If we
ignore american car culture for a second, cars aren't too polluting. Cruise
ships and some companies are way worse. Especially cruise ships are incredibly
bad for the environment and should (in my opinion) be abandoned or improved
drastically before i get denied a diesel car by the german government.
Especially if petrol/gas production is worse for the environment than diesel.
And third: electric cars can move the pollution out of the cities and
somewhere else. Same with noise. Though battery production is an issue that
won't move out of the way in the near future. Energy production, the distance
and battery production make electric cars not viable for many people.
Especially if you plan to go on vacation sometimes.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
So:

1\. Ban cars, 2. Promote better public transport that meets needs, 3. Ban
cruise ships and promote environmentally aware shipping, 4. Power the grid
from sustainable sources, 5. Take holidays by public transport.

Yep, fully behind all that.

~~~
laalf
I was saying that there are more important issuea to be tackled first. Banning
cars altogether is too extremist. And cars can be a hobby which you would be
killing which is never a good idea.

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kerrsclyde
As each generation grows up more and more ingrained with the use of a car the
likelihood of this happening decreases. Governments would be too frightened to
take this away.

My father was the first person in his extended family to own a car, around 60
years ago. Car travel was a luxury. My mother used to go on holiday via train,
something that is almost unheard of now in the UK.

At my children's school parents would rather spend the best part of an hour
queuing for a car parking space, then queuing to get out of car park rather
than go to the effort of walking in much less time.

People seem to be prepared to put up with the madness rather than walk / use
public transport.

~~~
ed_balls
> As each generation grows up more and more ingrained with the use of a car
> the likelihood of this happening decreases.

I doubt it.

> Traffic counts suggest that the number of miles cycled in 2017 – 3.27
> billion – is around 29% above the figure for 1997.

> Cycle use increases have been higher in some urban areas: in London, for
> example, around 27,000 people cycled across the central London by cycle in
> 1977 (both directions), compared to 184,000 in 2016 – almost seven times as
> many.

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canofbars
I live in a small ish city and the air quality is much better than most cities
but when I have to travel in to the city for work i end up coughing for the
rest of the day. On weekends I avoid the city and by Saturday my cough is
mostly gone and by sunday its totally gone only to come back on monday. Cars
are the primary reason for me wanting to change to a remote job. Not only is
riding my bike in to the city slightly terrifying but the damage being around
so much air pollution is just too much to make it worth it.

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melling
Better mass transit in cities is probably a good place to start. Do low-medium
speed maglevs carrying 30,000 people per hour sound appealing?

[https://gbtimes.com/beijing-launch-first-maglev-
line-2016](https://gbtimes.com/beijing-launch-first-maglev-line-2016)

[https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/china-driverless-
maglev-t...](https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/china-driverless-maglev-
trains/index.html)

~~~
baud147258
30K per hour doesn't seem like a lot.

------
mnm1
I agree it's a problem but I see no discussion of housing costs or the costs
of completely redoing public transportation. Clearly the author hasn't thought
this through. People drive because they can't afford to live where they
ideally want to. In the US, public transportation is virtually non-existent.
Without a solution to the housing and transportation problems, there's no way
to get rid of cars and no one has even proposed a solution, let alone the
author.

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craftoman
Imagine the day where you could just chill at your balcony without any noise
pollution thanks to EVs. Your mental health would benefit from that too.

~~~
canofbars
EVs still make a lot of tire and wind noise. They also cause air pollution
from rubber and brake dust. There is just simply no way to continue using cars
they are not suited to modern cities.

~~~
pliftkl
That seems like a very strong statement. The air pollution from rubber and
brake dust is minimal relative to the emissions from combustion engines. You
seem to be arguing "there's no way to continue cars because we won't get them
to 100% clean and silent". It's not that having quieter cities and no
pollution are bad things, but having those as your goals eliminates many good
options that address other laudable goals (like substantial reductions in
pollution and noise from EV's).

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FavouriteColour
I think this article does a disservice to the cause for reducing CO2
emissions. It’s unnecessarily hyperbolic and contains factual inaccuracies.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
Not sure where you see inaccuracies. Unlike yourself it links and cites the
claims made.

Doesn't seem especially hyperbolic either.

~~~
FavouriteColour
Indeed I checked one of his references where he says that it is cars that are
the primary reason that CO2 emissions haven’t reduced in the transport sector.
The linked article says that it is airlines (increase of 2%) not cars
(decrease of 1%).

~~~
NeedMoreTea
Can you please link the piece that claims this - I see nothing to support this
in the couple of links around transport emissions.

~~~
FavouriteColour
[https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uks-co2-emissions-
fell-...](https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uks-co2-emissions-fell-for-
record-sixth-consecutive-year-in-2018)

“Demand for oil was also largely unchanged in 2018 (-0.3%). Within that total,
demand for diesel and petrol both saw annual declines of around 1%, whereas
aviation fuel was up 2%.“

~~~
NeedMoreTea
Even with a tiny change in relative proportions within transport, road
vehicles still use vastly more fuel than aviation in the UK. Without absolute
tonnage of emissions, and relative proportion of commercial and private, I
can't see a way to invalidate his claim or prefer aviation as culprit. It
_sounds_ perfectly reasonable and the least controversial assumption from data
available: cars are the big majority of the largest fuel user, though
commercial traffic may get low enough mpg to emit disproportionally large
amounts.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
And then there's this:

[https://www.industrytap.com/worlds-15-biggest-ships-
create-m...](https://www.industrytap.com/worlds-15-biggest-ships-create-more-
pollution-than-all-the-cars-in-the-world/8182)

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RickJWagner
Cars can't and shouldn't be phased out in rural areas. They're a necessity.
And rural living is a necessity for all of society, without it agriculture
will die.

So maybe a city-centric approach is the right thing.

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kowdermeister
Damn, I thought I could afford a decent sports car for me in 10 years :)

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sqldba
No.

