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As air pollution levels soar should you stop riding?

Experts say cycling is part of the pollution solution

Air pollution is in the headlines today as a variety of weather conditions including dust blown in from the Sahara combine to push the level of pollution to the top of  Defra's ten-point scale in some parts of south-east England. Should cyclists be concerned and what can be done about it?

The immediate good news, according to Dr Paul Cosford, director for health protection at Public Health England, is that normally healthy people should have nothing to worry about.

Speaking on the Today program this morning, Dr Cosford said: “For normal healthy people, I am on my bike today and other people should be. We don’t need to buy little white masks, we need to increase the amount of physical activity that we do because it’s great for our health.

“So this is, in a way, a reminder to do something that is both good for the environment, let’s reduce the air pollution, but lets do things that are good for our health too, let’s walk, let’s cycle, let’s do all the things that are of benefit to us.”

Dr Cosford said that if you do feel the effects of the bad air, then take it easier.

“We may notice sore eyes coughs, or throat and maybe a little bit of a wheeze if we’re taking physical activity outdoors and if that occurs it’s sensible to reduce, during these high pollution episodes, the amount of physical activity.”

That's not to play down the risk to anyone with an existing condition, such as asthma. Dr Helen Dacre, a meteorologist at the University of Reading, told the Independent: "High air pollution levels can cause unpleasant and dangerous effects on health, both long and short term.

"Toxic gases, such as nitrogen dioxide and ozone, as well as fine dust particles in the air blown in from the Sahara and from burning fossil fuels, all contribute to cause problems for people with heart, lung and breathing problems, such as asthma.

"The problem is likely to be particularly bad today because weather conditions have conspired to create a 'perfect storm' for air pollution."

Because of air pollution’s effect on people who are already ill or elderly, it’s a major contributor to early death, according to Public Health England, which says on its website: “In the UK alone, it is estimated that the burden of long-term exposure to anthropogenic particulate air pollution in 2008 was an effect on mortality equivalent to nearly 29,000 deaths at typical ages and an associated loss of total population life of 340,000 life-years.”

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.

“The UK has not presented any such plan for the zones in question. The Commission is therefore of the opinion that the UK is in breach of its obligations under the directive,” the commission said.

What steps can the UK take to improve things? You probably won’t be surprised to hear that experts think cycling can be a big part of the solution to pollution.

Dr Cosford said the answers included, “things like greening our vehicles, improving the public transport system so that it’s easier to use public transport rather than using cars, but particularly two other things: creating better green spaces in our cities and towns, and also the more that we encourage active transport like walking and cycling.

“That is particularly beneficial, it reduces the amount of road transport, reduces the amount of air pollution and also gives us that fantastic health benefit.”

While London and the South-East chokes and politicians quail from putting people’s health above the interests of the road haulage lobby, Paris has already taken steps to reduce motor traffic and therefore pollution at times of poor air quality.

The BBC reports that on Monday March 17, a car ban was imposed in Paris following pollution levels of 180 microgrammes of PM10 particulates per cubic metre on Friday March 14. The ‘safe’ limit is 80µg/m3.

Seven hundred Parisian police officers monitored the city’s roads from 180 control points around the region between 5:30am and midnight, allowing only vehicles with odd-numbered licence plates on the road.  The next day it was the turn of even-number plated cars.

Police reportedly issued 4,000 tickets for a €22 fine by midday on March 17, with 27 cars impounded after their drivers refused to cooperate.

The preceding Friday (March 14) public transport was free of charge and that continued over the weekend into the Monday.

In October 2011 the Italian city of Milan banned all traffic from its streets for 10 hours in an attempt to reduce smog.

Active travel organisations have pointed out that the root of the problem is that motorised transport has been made a priority in city planning for many decades.

Philip Insall, Director of Health for sustainable transport charity Sustrans said: “Hardly a day passes without new and frightening evidence of the harm done by our obsession with motorised transport.

“The World Health Organisation has calculated that globally, air pollution kills seven million people a year. In the UK it is a grave threat to health – and yet right in front of us is a major contribution to solving the air quality problem: a shift to walking and cycling for local trips.

“More people travelling on foot or by bike would mean less congestion and also cut the death toll from climate change and from physical inactivity.

“Today’s air quality warning is another red light for traditional car-dominated transport policies. Government needs to do much more, right now, in the way of policy and dedicated investment in clean, healthy travel such as walking and cycling.”

Elliot Johnston contributed to this story.

John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.

He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.

Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.

John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.

He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.

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44 comments

Avatar
pmanc | 10 years ago
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And Boris's best plans to avoid the fines? Try to hide the pollution where it's being monitored and try to get the law relaxed rather than improve the levels.

Let's remember this EU law exists to try and protect the health of some of the most vulnerable members of society from a risk we can't see and avoid ourselves. Of course the taxpayers will lose out because of the fines - I wish we could make the politicians personally liable so they would pay for their negligence.

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Paul M | 10 years ago
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Ban private cars, except limited exceptions eg blue badge holders.
Set a cap on the number of licensed taxis and licensed taxi drivers (as 2 or more drivers often shift-share one cab) at or close to current levels, to discourage drivers simply switching to taxis. Establish some form of secondary licensing scheme for minicabs so their numbers can also be capped.
Set a deadline for all vehicles, whether tax, bus or commercial, to conform with the emissions limits imposed on all newer vehicles at MOT for some time now.
If they don't do this now, they will find the need to do it later ever more compelling.

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Username | 10 years ago
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It's perverted that the official advice today is to exercise less and stay indoors. It should be the reverse.

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ribena | 10 years ago
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TFL abandoned their attempts to enforce new low emission rules on private buses, coaches and lorries last year...
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/roadusers/lez/17678.aspx

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RobD | 10 years ago
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Having seen how much influence lobby groups can have on decisions I'm not surprised the government hasn't taken a more proactive stance on trying to improve air quality.
Hopefully this week will bring it to the forefront a little bit more.
Maybe if they want to encourage people to cycle more they should cut the VAT on bikes, put an extra penny on fuel duty would no doubt cover the cost.
Times may be tight for people and cars may be needed by many for work, but some proper action would really help encourage people. Helping cut the ludicrous costs of railfare (and other public transport) will help a little, but there need to be genuine options that offer people a combination of cost savings and little in the way of inconvenience compared to car driving.

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stuke | 10 years ago
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I'm full of cold and with a sore throat decided to take the car instead of the bike to work today to avoid the pollution..........oh the irony!!  4

Avatar
Ush replied to stuke | 10 years ago
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stuke wrote:

I'm full of cold and with a sore throat decided to take the car instead of the bike to work today to avoid the pollution..........oh the irony!!  4

It is ironic. And it illustrates that the problem is not solvable on the level of individual action. Similar to the situation that parents dare not let their children walk to school let alone cycle because of all the traffic caused by their cohorts doing the same thing.

Some problems require society-level choices.

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levermonkey replied to stuke | 10 years ago
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stuke wrote:

I'm full of cold and with a sore throat decided to take the car instead of the bike to work today to avoid the pollution..........oh the irony!!  4

You do realise that you have exposed yourself to the same levels of pollution as you would have done cycling but without the health benefits of exercise. But don't beat yourself up about it; you will recover quicker with a short break from riding than if you tried to ride through the flu. A couple of days is usually enough.

Recover soon.

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jollygoodvelo replied to levermonkey | 10 years ago
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levermonkey wrote:
stuke wrote:

I'm full of cold and with a sore throat decided to take the car instead of the bike to work today to avoid the pollution..........oh the irony!!  4

You do realise that you have exposed yourself to the same levels of pollution as you would have done cycling but without the health benefits of exercise. But don't beat yourself up about it; you will recover quicker with a short break from riding than if you tried to ride through the flu. A couple of days is usually enough.

Recover soon.

I'm not going to go and look it up (facts? On the Internet?) but I believe there was a study recently which said car passengers inhaled six times as much pollutants at cyclists over a journey of the same distance.

I'm about to ride home through the 'smog'. Looks like a lovely evening.

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Matt_Z | 10 years ago
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It won't make a difference to the already very high pollution levels in central London. I have to wear a tektro mask due to the NO2 (diesels) wrecking havoc with my asthma. So, if you are outside London this is news, otherwise its business as usual.

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caaad10 | 10 years ago
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I cycled for a couple of hours yesterday on a sunny blue sky day (in SW France where the air is usually clean but there has been a lot of that saharan dust evident), when I got home it felt like I'd been frying chilli peppers and I've had a nasty cough since. I've decided not to go out today, I'm going to wait until it has rained & the air has cleared. I've never had anything like it before....

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kie7077 | 10 years ago
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Just 22,000 taxi's causing 30% of inner London's pollution and our government can't figure out a solution. Looks to me like they really haven't tried, they thought they could sit on their arses and wait for car technology to make cars cleaner and result in lower pollution. It didn't work, fine them, the maximum.

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rich22222 | 10 years ago
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Time everyone accepted how anti social and unhealthy for everyone private motor vehicles are.

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mrmo | 10 years ago
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If pollution rises the solution is to stop doing what creates the pollution, and more specifically creates the pollution where it most affects people! ban cars in towns and cities.

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