Should cars come with health warnings like cigarettes ?

Viewpoint: It’s time to end our love affair with cars

ANDREW SIMMS, AUTHOR & CO-DIRECTOR, NEW WEATHER INSTITUTE

I think cars should come with health warnings like cigarettes. Why? Consider this… What cigarette do you smoke doctor? It might sound incredible now, but there was a time when doctors appeared in adverts encouraging us to smoke. You could smoke in restaurants and pubs, buses and planes. Now, cigarette packets come with stark and graphic warnings about the impact of smoking on your health – and on those around you.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/ideas/videos/viewpoint-its-time-to-end-our-love-affair-with-car/p08s48hr?playlist=sustainable-thinking

I think we need to reassess our relationship -you could call it a love affair – with the car. What’s interesting about our response to the threats from both smoking and the pandemic, is how we acted and changed our behaviour to help protect each other’s health. We don’t blow cigarette smoke in each other’s faces anymore. Or light up inside. With the coronavirus, we quickly learned to give each other space, wear masks, wash our hands – and we got used to all the signs reminding us to do so. It’s normal where there’s a threat to life for us to change our behaviour and do whatever it takes to protect friends, family and other people. So why do we put up with the air pollution pandemic, when there’s something we can do about it? Why don’t we have reminders on cars about the consequences of street level pollution, and encourage us to walk or cycle more?

Studies have shown air pollution – much of which comes from cars – contributes to the premature deaths of almost half a million people in Europe every year.

Since 2010, SUVs have been the second biggest source of rising carbon emissions. If SUV drivers were a nation, they’d be the world’s 7th biggest carbon polluter.

Putting health warnings on cars would be a stark and clear visual reminder to all of us about the devastating impact on people and the planet. And it might just help shift our attitude to cars once and for all.

Initiatives to pedestrianise streets and reclaim space from traffic for walking are happening overnight.

Initiatives to pedestrianise streets and reclaim space from traffic for walking that for decades have been seen by most cities as too hard are happening overnight.

We are living through a period during which cities are changing much faster than usual. Lengthy and conservative cycles of planning, consultation, policy development, budgeting and implementation are being bypassed by accelerated delivery frameworks and temporary interventions…….

 

James Evans, Karen Lucas, Jim Walker and Bronwen Thornton, June 2020

whole article

Air pollution and COVID-19

From Polis Webinar:

Early evidence shows that pollution from transport might have played a role in worsening the impact of the virus, highlighting a clear need to reduce pollution not just during COVID-19 but also to deliver long-term health benefits for Europe. Sustainable urban mobility will play a key role in reducing air pollution and solutions are now needed to ensure that cities and regions enjoy good air quality now and in the future.

Air pollution can have serious effects on every organ in the body and can even adversely affect unborn children. Many chronic diseases, such as asthma, type 2 diabetes, lung cancer and respiratory infection are known to be caused by or made worse by air pollution. 

Post-Lockdown Mobility webinar report   whole article from Polis 

Fewer cars on the road during the pandemic has meant cleaner air, but not necessarily fewer traffic deaths.

The Traffic Trade-Off

By Tanya Mohn     NY-Times

Fewer cars on the road during the pandemic has meant cleaner air, but not necessarily fewer traffic deaths. Can we have both?

Milan in late April. The city has reallocated some lanes for bicycles and pedestrians.     Credit…Daniele Mascolo/Reuters

As we now know, the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown has been a silver lining for another global crisis: climate change. Sharp decreases in traffic and better air quality have been reported around the world, and hundreds of jurisdictions from Berlin to Bogotá are reallocating space to make it easier for walkers and cyclists with permanent and emergency solutions, like “pop-up” bike routes.

“We are at a moment of change that we have not seen since World War II when cities needed to reinvent themselves,” said Claudia Adriazola-Steil, global director for the health and road safety program at the World Resources Institute’s Ross Center for Sustainable Cities. “The longtime goals of reducing the number of cars on the roads and unacceptable levels of air pollution was achieved in a few weeks. You can see the Himalayan blue skies for the first time in 25 years.”

more: whole article from Tanja Mohn

ECF Recommendations 4 the COVID Recovery

The European Cyclists’ Federation’s  4 Recommendations for the COVID Recovery

 

1. Cycling infrastructure networks

A well-designed network of bicycle infrastructure is essential to the promotion of cycling as a safe, efficient and healthy mode of transport.

  2. Reduce traffic speed limits

Road safety experts agree that speed is one of the major threats to safer streets. Reducing traffic speed in cities to 30km/h (if not lower) is the first step to achieve that goal and would not make overall mobility any slower.

 3. Incentivise positive change, disincentive business as usual

Together with Cycling Industries Europe and several other bicycle organisations in Europe, we are calling on the European institutions to create a €5 billion centralised EU e-bike Access Fund.

 4. Cycle logistics

Right-turning trucks in urban areas are one of the leading causes of deadly and life-changing accidents with cyclists. Also, over 90% of all commercial vans and trucks currently circulating are diesel-fuelled. The promotion of alternatives such as cycle logistics for the last-mile delivery is essential.

whole article from ECF

Protecting Car Industry More Important than Saving Road User Lives?

You would think that people dying on the road would attract a furore of voices for change. But somehow we just accept those deaths as the accepted  collateral for ease, timeliness and convenience, just a side effect of car use.

Statistics  also show that SUVs are twice as likely to kill pedestrians because of the high front end  profile, but this information has not been well publicized.

From 2009 to 2016, in the US pedestrian deaths have risen 46 percent and are directly linked to the increase of these large vehicles on the road.

It is the weight and size of the vehicle and bumper height that are crucial for pedestrian and cyclist survival of a crash. But surprise! The NHTSA’s bumper regulations are written to “limit vehicle body damage. It has nothing to do with protecting people hit by said bumper. Nor do any regulations exist for vehicle hoods to absorb energy efficiently (cushion the victim)  during a crash”.

And that is a huge ethical inequity that should not be tolerated.

whole article by Sandy James Planner

pricetags.ca

Decarbonizing transport: COVID-19 has brought immediate challenges.

As we celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day and prepare to rebuild the world’s transport sectors in the aftermath of COVID-19, decarbonization should be a top consideration. The tools are there to move towards cleaner transport that also promotes green economic growth, jobs, opportunities for the poor, and better infrastructure services for all.

Decarbonizing transport and increasing its resilience require a long-term perspective, but COVID-19 has brought immediate challenges.

Transport’s emission problem is not mode-specific but most emissions come from road transport, such as trucks and cars.

International finance institutions such as the World Bank must set the example by making it possible for countries to invest in low-carbon mass transportation and non-motorized modes, such as walking and cycling.

World Bank Blogs

 

 

NO2 levels as a contributing factor to coronavirus fatality ?

An interesting analysis from 

In this study, the concentrations of the tropospheric NO₂ which were extracted from the Sentinel-5P satellite were used in order to explain the spatial variation of fatality cases of Covid-19 in four European countries.

These results indicate that the long-term exposure to this pollutant may be one of the most important contributors to fatality caused by the COVID-19 virus in these regions and maybe across the whole world.

According to these results, more studies should be conducted which focus on additional factors such as age and presence of pre-existing and background diseases along with the impact of pre-exposure to NO₂ and hypercytokinemia in order to verify their impact on fatalities due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

whole article

What’s speed got to do with Covid

An interesting article from TRL about speed 😦 and Covid 🙂

with an good example from the Isle of Man

Unfortunately, it looks like some people are engaging in some particularly dangerous driving behaviour, putting themselves and key workers on the roads at risk in doing so. However, creating an impression that many people are taking advantage of the quieter roads and speeding may risk contributing to a misperception of the social norm in the majority of drivers, and that could encourage some people to take more risks with their speed.

Additional trauma from speeding and other dangerous activities diminishes our health service’s capacity to cope in the current crisis. Therefore, police should maintain visible and steady levels of speeding enforcement as much as possible. Giving the message that low‑level speeding doesn’t matter may have undesirable consequences. At this unprecedented time, we should take heed of the proactive actions.

whole TRL post

Air pollution may be ‘key contributor’ to Covid-19 deaths – study

Research shows almost 80% of deaths across four countries were in most polluted regions

High levels of air pollution may be “one of the most important contributors” to deaths from Covid-19, according to research.

The analysis shows that of the coronavirus deaths across 66 administrative regions in Italy, Spain, France and Germany, 78% of them occurred in just five regions, and these were the most polluted.

“This is all the more reason to keep traffic and pollution levels down as much as possible now and get out of this terrible situation with a view to fewer but cleaner vehicles on the road.”

more: from The Guardian

more from Prof. Manuel Ramos: Corona

more from me: Jeannot Mersch