
Drivers who keep their windows down are exposed to 80 percent more air pollution - clouddrover
https://www.surrey.ac.uk/news/drivers-who-keep-their-windows-down-are-exposed-80-percent-more-air-pollution
======
vosper
You can smell car exhaust even when there's not many cars on the road; if it's
bad enough you can virtually taste it. Sitting at the lights is the worst. All
that shit going into your lungs. And I don't even live in India or Vietnam,
where the air pollution is unbelievably bad (literally - I did not truly get
how bad it is in Delhi until I went there, even having seen photos) and people
are just living in it, day in and day out.

In 5-10 years one of the things that will be recognized as a marker of
privilege will be breathing clean air. We're going to see a diaspora out of
the city and into the countryside... for the people who can afford to do that
(and where the countryside offers clean air)

Air pollution is arguably the biggest health crisis in the world, and it has
been a problem for decades. We're only just realising it, and it's still
taking too long. It's taken decades to get climate change into people's minds,
but right now today air pollution is having much bigger effects.

~~~
aeternum
>We're going to see a diaspora out of the city and into the countryside

I think that instead we will see cleaner air in cities since the economics of
electric/hybrid cars will win, especially in city traffic. This trend can
already be seen in SF where zero-emission hybrids and electrics make up a
decent percentage of the traffic.

~~~
ImaCake
You talk about these things like they are the future. But western cities are
already much much cleaner than 40 years ago. The move to electric cars and
more livable cities is just the continuation of a fight that has been going on
at least since the industrial revolution and adoption of hygiene.

~~~
jdsully
Long before the industrial revolution. Horse manure and slaughter runoff were
huge sources of disease in cities even before coal smoke took over the air.

------
dustinmoris
> “ According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), air pollution kills an
> estimated seven million people worldwide every year and nine out of 10
> people breathe air with high levels of pollutants.”

This is approximately half the deaths we would expect worldwide if no country
was to do anything and we’d let COVID-19 rage through our societies.

Why is our response to air pollution so drastically different then? We don’t
even implement a single day lockdown to reduce pollution for a single day. I’m
sure air pollution also disproportionately affects young children and damages
their lungs as opposed to Coronavirus.

This world is so weird.

~~~
oblio
You can't really prevent pollution deaths easily. You'd need to retrofit
thousands of factories, construction sites, billions of cars, etc.

The solutions for Covid are quite simple in principle but our lack of
discipline in minor things is killing us.

~~~
nickcox
GP's point is fair though. Many developed economies are spending literally
hundreds of billions of dollars tackling COVID. Have we done proper
cost/benefit analyses to verify whether that money could save or improve more
lives in other areas?

~~~
jack_h
Look at the response to things such as mass shootings which, statistically,
represent a small fraction of the total murders committed. Terrorist attacks
(in the west) receive a disproportionate amount of attention compared to other
problems as well.

Perhaps it's because these things can disrupt anyone's daily life seemingly at
random. Pollution on the other hand is just part of our daily lives. There are
other things which fall into that category as well such as smoking, fast food,
alcohol, etc.

Perhaps we as a species, rightly or wrongly, fear the unexpected more than we
fear the status quo, even if the latter is more harmful than the former. So we
allocate resources to fix the former but not the latter.

~~~
smabie
I mean, there's good reason for this. Air pollution is manageable because it's
known, the market and people can take it into account and try and make
informed decisions. Terrorists attacks do not have this property and the
variance of the people they kill is quite high. This makes it hard to ignore.

------
bluejekyll
Professor Prashant Kumar, Director of GCARE at the University of Surrey, said:
“To be blunt, we need as many cars as possible off the road, or more green
vehicles to reduce air pollution exposure.“

We need to stop using ICE vehicles. All the other people on the street are
even worse off. The people driving the cars are also _causing_ the very
pollution this mentions.

~~~
rconti
Unfortunately, brake dust and tire rubber also represents a surprisingly large
amount of particulate matter as well. I wish I had the source, but it was far
more significant than I ever would have guessed.

(I have an EV, a gasoline powered sports car, and a diesel SUV (with
particulate filter and urea injection))

~~~
throwaheyy
EV regen braking partially helps with the brake dust, at least. May be
counteracted by the tire rubber because EVs can be driven in a more “spirited”
way.

~~~
rconti
Great point.

I also find it humorous that the busybodies who insist that stop signs be
installed every block of their neighborhood arterial have to suffer from the
resulting air and noise pollution.

I drive 'spiritedly', but I suppose the tire wear due to hard cornering is not
nearly offset by the saved brake pad and exhaust emissions!

~~~
ethanwillis
So you're getting mad at people who are reacting irrationally to you speeding
through neighborhoods?

I think there's more than one problem here.

~~~
kube-system
Stop signs are a pretty bad solution for traffic calming, though. The key to
effective traffic calming is to shape drivers’ natural behaviors, not
authoritatively demand it.

A stop sign that serves no purpose than to slow people down will piss off
drivers more than anything, and lead to people speeding between signs or
running them. It will make your street noisier as impatient people
aggressively obey the signs.

A typical neighborhood would be much better off if traffic was calmed by
adding kerb extensions or narrowing the lanes.

I think the above commenter might share my frustration that local politics is
often full of people unknowingly demanding the wrong solution to their
problem.

~~~
diablerouge
As someone who lives in a neighborhood full of stop signs (just about every
other street is signed), I find that it actually does _exactly_ what you're
saying, i.e. shape drivers' natural behaviors.

Almost everyone elects to drive on one of the nearby "thoroughfares" rather
than stop and start all the way through the neighborhood. So I see stop signs
as the perfect solution.

I'd agree this wouldn't probably work on a road that sees heavy traffic
already though.

~~~
pravus
Except where I live they also put stop signs on the thoroughfares. Some places
just have messed up traffic.

------
egman_ekki
Interesting compared to other study showing that cyclists are least exposed to
pollution on their commute:
[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/13/cyclists...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/13/cyclists-
exposed-to-less-air-pollution-than-drivers-on-congested-routes-study)

~~~
gruez
...only because they spent less time commuting

>All the commuters set off at the same time, and the cyclists were by far the
fastest, arriving in 11 minutes, half the time of bus and car travellers.

Buses and cars still do better when you're measuring pollution per minute

~~~
Mathnerd314
That Guardian article also mentions "green routes", taking side streets or
pedestrian / bicycle walkways. There's a lot less pollution in those areas
than on a busy road.

------
emptybits
Cruel irony that cyclists, part of the solution, inhale the worst of the
problem.

~~~
amelius
This is why it would be only fair if there was regulation that said that a
car's exhaust must end in the cabin.

~~~
numlock86
While we are at it, let's make sure that any toilet flush goes directly back
into one's water supply and disposal of waste and trash takes place in the
household's garden.

~~~
Brakenshire
We used to have a system where people ejected sewage into the street, too.
It’s telling that you equate air pollution to sewage, and then imply that
pumping it into the street constitutes proper disposal.

~~~
necovek
I think you are missing GP's point: a parent post to theirs is suggesting
piping exhaust gasses from cars into the very small space that cabin has. Our
sewage does go to rivers, lakes or seas (a huge environmental issue as well),
so GPs example is quite to the point, because that's the equivalent in water
use (with the benefit that our apartments are bigger and we do not reuse the
water right away so there is more time to filter waste out).

If you still don't get the parallel, let's move one step up: all greenhouse
gasses produced from your energy use in your apartment have to stay in
(including those from coal power plants, grocery production and delivery...).
Sorry, no opening windows for you to get your own CO2 out to other people.

My point is that air is a shared resource, and thus a shared responsibility.
But someone turning the narrative extreme does not help drive any solution
forward (I am reminded of Stan's dad Randy getting a Prius in Southpark).

------
calibas
Seems like the focus should be on not poisoning the air in the first place.

~~~
Aachen
My dad was telling us how, given that my spouse drives a lot of highway
kilometers to work, we should totally get some air filter. A few days later I
randomly realized: why don't we put that filter on the _exhaust_ if it's so
bad?!

~~~
hnarn
It would only work if exhaust filters were mandatory for all cars, since the
environment is "free" to ruin for anyone it doesn't make economical sense to
install an exhaust filter unless you're legally obliged.

~~~
Aachen
Sure, we already have a load of regulations to make cars less pollutive. Would
this be unreasonable? People are already putting this in their car, just not
on the business end.

It's also not just other drivers or the poor environment: a huge number of
people (I'd speculate that it's the majority) live near busy roads. Adverse
health effects from breathing near a busy road are common knowledge.

------
thunderrabbit
> air pollution kills an estimated seven million people worldwide every year

~~~
labster
Imagine if climate change is actually a liberal hoax, and the only thing that
cleaning up the air would do is make it easier to see Starlink at night and
save seven million souls a year. Still seems worth it.

~~~
whatshisface
Taking your situation at face value, in that case people would spend a lot on
filters but keep carbon.

------
lliiffee
I was surprised to learn recently that there is a cheap and easy to take
action that will reduce your exposure to air pollution while driving: Replace
your passenger-compartment air filter with a HEPA filter! Most cars made in
the last 15 years or so have an air filter right before the AC. You can, for
slightly more money, replace this with a HEPA filter. I haven't tested, but
this will probably be very effective, since the car is such a small space and
there is so much pollution outside.

Replacing the filter is an incredibly easy job on most cars. You don't need
any tools or even to open the hood. You just pull out your glove box, and then
the filter slides in and out.

I honestly think that in terms of health, this might be the action that has
the highest ROI. (Amount of health improvement per amount of time / money
invested.)

------
guccihat
"The study found that commuters who turn on the recirculation are exposed to
around 80 percent less harmful particles than those who open their car
windows."

Doesn't that mean they have 5 times more exposure, not 80% more?

~~~
k2enemy
It depends on how they calculated percent change, but looking at the journal
article, you are correct. From the abstract...

> Compared with recirculation, PM2.5 and PM10 were higher by up to 589%
> (Blantyre) and 1020% (São Paulo), during windows-open and higher by up to
> 385% (São Paulo) and 390% (São Paulo) during fan-on, respectively.

The headline should read 400% more to reflect the 80% reduction. This is a
massive failure of the university press office and I think your comment should
be at the top.

------
strogonoff
The article says “in-car air pollution” and does not once mention toxic
emissions from BPA, flame retardants, lead, chromium and other materials used
in automobile interior construction. Is that a solved problem?

------
cortesoft
I can't stand having my windows down, at least at any speed over like 30mph.

The pressure differential messes with my ears. I can't understand people who
cruise around with the windows down.

~~~
viraptor
It really depends on the profile of the car. Some have almost no bad
pressure/sound effects.

------
netsharc
Huh, the headline is very general, but they did the study in poor cities...

At least in the EU/US there are emission standards that have to be met for
cars to be legally allowed on the road. I wonder how that affects things.

Then again, Dieselgate has shown that almost all car manufacturers make their
engines to barely pass the imperfect test, but that real life driving is way
worse than the pollution figures on paper.

~~~
speedgoose
The regulations are indeed shit. The conditions of the tests do not correspond
to anything realistic.

Just look at the curve of the WLTP test on Wikipedia :
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldwide_Harmonised_Light_V...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldwide_Harmonised_Light_Vehicles_Test_Procedure#/media/File%3AClass_3b.svg)

Who drives like this? 1 minute to reach the high speed on the high speed test
for example. The speed is never maintained, it's either accelerating or
slowing down.

Today you see hybrids cars with tiny batteries that are close to useless just
to meet regulations. In practice these hybrid cars smoke a lot, because it's
cold and the battery is cold, because it's warm and you want AC, because you
need to not drive too slow in the traffic, because the battery is already
empty.

When the diesel gate happened, the French minister of the environment decided
to test many cars on a track. They never published the results.

------
antisthenes
Cabin filters were invented for a reason.

Change them at regular intervals, or, in extra heavy traffic, put the
recirculator on.

It'll make the air stuffy, but will keep it cleaner than it would have been
otherwise. Don't keep it on for too long though, as the CO2 levels will start
to rise and you might begin to lose concentration.

~~~
wintermutestwin
>put the recirculator on

...and yet, the majority of cars (IME) default to recirc off.

~~~
beenBoutIT
What percentage of the air in the cabin actually passes through the cabin
filter? Cabin filters are too small to filter the amount of air required for
more than one human, let alone a packed car with 5 or more. Air gets in
through seams and gaps and cars aren't very airtight.

------
tasssko
I haven’t seen this in the comments but its one reason I wonder why
convertibles sell so well in the UK. I have a sun roof and i hardly ever use
it because i hate the smell of exhaust. I may use the sunroof on a coastal
road once in a while but not for long periods. I chose the car i drive because
it has a hepa filtration system built into the climate control. I agree with
comments about pollution but i must add that as a motorcyclist for a decade in
London i blamed most pollution on short journeys like school runs. During
school breaks the roads were much cleaner. So getting everyone to commute to
work by bike won’t fix the problem when from experience most of the pollution
is parents taking kids to school!

------
rv-de
But if the window is up, nobody can listen to my music. Which is necessary for
me to self-medicate my ADD ... :(

------
jonnypotty
Am I the only one who noticed the headline and article say completely
contradictory things?

~~~
Const-me
I did, but I think that’s an English language issue. Apparently, by “keep
windows down” they have meant “keep them shut down”. Completely counter-
intuitive to me, vast majority of car windows move the other way, down to
open, up to close.

~~~
prmph
I'm not sure I follow: in both the title and article, keeping windows down
means allowing air from outside through the windows, no? Surely closing the
windows cannot expose one to more air pollution than opening them?

------
olivermarks
Emissions Analytics found that emissions of particulate matter from tire wear
can be 1,000 times worse than from tailpipes.

[https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1127424_study-
particula...](https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1127424_study-particulate-
emissions-from-tire-wear-is-higher-than-from-tailpipes)

This is a rapidly increasing problem as more EVs, which are very heavy on tire
wear, generate more pollution. Good idea to stay on top of alignment:
[https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/unusual-tire-
wear.10...](https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/unusual-tire-wear.108481/)

~~~
malwarebytess
>The hatchback's tires emitted 5.8 grams of particulate matter per kilometer

This number seems incredibly suspect. It's far too high. That rate of loss
cannot be sustained. Either their research is wrong or loss levels off
dramatically and quickly. At that rate of loss the tires, across 4 tires at 27
lbs each, would evaporate in 8500km and realistically be unusable after under
a thousand.

~~~
radicalbyte
That might be right for an F1 car, they go through two sets of tires a race.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
It says “hatchback”, so: no?

------
giardini
Sponsored by your friendly manufacturers of auto cabin air filters.

[In all honesty, my auto's cabin air filter is _always_ far dirtier than the
engine's air filter.]

------
at_a_remove
It's a shame, because I like to keep my windows cracked every so slightly. It
helps me hear where all of the cars are around me.

------
intsunny
In pandemic times I only ride e-hailed taxies with the window opened at least
50%.

Guess it's a matter of picking my poison.

------
jwilber
Another way in which the poor are disproportionately affected.

Driving a beater with no AC in the summer? All windows down.

------
arielweisberg
Dang, not looking good for the convertible lifestyle.

------
AniseAbyss
I know people who live next to a busy highway. They are scientifically proven
to die a few years before their high income peers living in a nice secluded
villa. Not all animals are equal.

------
Qahlel
I always use 64x drivers for my windows 10. I don't use open source drivers
but only proper ones from the manufacturers. I don't think this would expose
me to more air pollution.

~~~
saagarjha
It might not, but your “proper” drivers may be of poor quality and expose you
to other issues.

