Let's talk diesel sensibly.

[Flying Dodo]

That seems to me a bit idealistic or maybe even simplistic, if you don't mind me saying so. There's much more to life than work and tesco, and much more to the UK than London and major cities.

I did say if you weren't in a city then you may well need a car. However 81.5% of the UK population do live in built up urban areas. Most don't need a car as a necessity like food and water- they want one (or more) often for more aspirational reasons. If I want to go somewhere, I get the train. Booking ahead, it's not too expensive, and it's far more relaxing than being stuck in a traffic jam.

Compare the UK to other parts of Europe, and not just places like the Netherlands or Denmark. Their figures for the numbers commuting, travelling or shopping by bike are much higher. It really is shocking in the UK that so many people just pop in their car for a short journey even though it can take far longer than walking or cycling. There are some interesting thoughts on this theme in this blog.

I live in a village about 3 miles from Luton. My next door neighbour drives the 0.5 km to get his daily paper from the local newsagent, even though I can beat him to the newsagents when walking, taking account of the time it then takes him to find a parking spot. He is not the only one to do this, and the parish council is being pressured to create more parking by the shops which would mean digging up part of the local Green. This sort of scenario is commonplace throughout the UK, reflected in the statistics I quoted for the large majority of car journeys being under 5 miles.

Sadly the majority of people in the UK are stuck in this mindset of using cars. And stuck is the operative word, to the detriment of everyone.

 

[fixedfixer]

I'll not be replacing our diesel car with another. I have grown to dislike the stink from the thing first thing in the morning on cold engine. Yes it it quite nippy, but how dismal is that clatter from under the bonnet. Small petrol engines car next.

 

[galaxy]

I go where i can by bike, but where is the insenitve to persuade people to do anything different, apart from Tax, which people grow accustomed to, so the difference is not for long.

 

[User482]

I did say if you weren't in a city then you may well need a car. However 81.5% of the UK population do live in built up urban areas. Most don't need a car as a necessity like food and water- they want one (or more) often for more aspirational reasons. If I want to go somewhere, I get the train. Booking ahead, it's not too expensive, and it's far more relaxing than being stuck in a traffic jam.

Compare the UK to other parts of Europe, and not just places like the Netherlands or Denmark. Their figures for the numbers commuting, travelling or shopping by bike are much higher. It really is shocking in the UK that so many people just pop in their car for a short journey even though it can take far longer than walking or cycling. There are some interesting thoughts on this theme in this blog.

I live in a village about 3 miles from Luton. My next door neighbour drives the 0.5 km to get his daily paper from the local newsagent, even though I can beat him to the newsagents when walking, taking account of the time it then takes him to find a parking spot. He is not the only one to do this, and the parish council is being pressured to create more parking by the shops which would mean digging up part of the local Green. This sort of scenario is commonplace throughout the UK, reflected in the statistics I quoted for the large majority of car journeys being under 5 miles.

Sadly the majority of people in the UK are stuck in this mindset of using cars. And stuck is the operative word, to the detriment of everyone.

I see it every day on the school run. It takes me and my daughter less than 15 minutes to scoot or cycle, and we invariably beat my neighbours who insist on driving - one of them was complaining about the time it took to de-ice his car this morning...

Regardless of environmental arguments, I simply do not understand why people would choose to waste their lives in traffic jams when there is an easier and cheaper alternative.

 

[NorthernDave]

Carrying on from my earlier post, our car is essential for commuting and if we're not working, we're not paying taxes.
Many weekends the car doesn't move from outside the house as it's only used when it's the only realistic option - in fact, today was the first time the car has been used since a couple of days before Christmas.
But I'm fortunate that I live in a big city, with a small Co-op a five minute walk away where I can get the essentials and on the rare occasions it's necessary there is a huge Tesco less than a 15 minute walk away where I can get pretty much everything else, although we normally get the weekly shop delivered by Morrisons while I'm making better use of my weekend by being out on the bike.
If I lived near enough to work to commute by bike I would (I did so happily in the 90s and it was easily faster than the two buses each way I need to catch), but that's not an option now. Move to live nearer work? Well, that would leave Mrs ND having to commute back here to where she works so nothing would be gained.

But even living in a big city we're blighted by bus services that cannot be relied on, that don't go where we want, that only run infrequently outside the 7am to 7pm peaks* and that are hideously expensive unless you buy a weekly or monthly ticket which discourages occasional users and keeps them in their cars. For example, for me and Mrs ND to go to our local 'high street' a couple of miles away a return trip costs £8.40 on the bus. A private hire taxi, (a car with seats for 4) is under £3 each way. How does that make sense?

This is becoming a far bigger issue than the subject of diesel cars though so I'll leave it there, other than to say that if there was a sensible alternative we'd use it.

 

[Flying Dodo]

Regardless of environmental arguments, I simply do not understand why people would choose to waste their lives in traffic jams when there is an easier and cheaper alternative.

I think this is the main problem. The biggest rise in the last 40 years has been in the numbers of 2 or more cars per household, with total car numbers increasing by a long term average of around 3% pa. So in 2016 that meant 600,000 more cars than 2015, and 618,000 more cars this year.

People have got so used to using their cars they can't see outside the box (pardon the pun). In the same way that 2,000+ road deaths are accepted as a normal thing, and yet if 2,000 people died each year in plane crashes in the UK, there'd be uproar.

Most of the population is locked into a cycle of spending a ridiculous amount of money on a depreciating asset, which then they have to use to justify the cost. It took events like the 1952 London smog which killed 4,000 people in a few weeks to (eventually) bring in the Clean Air Act. Although there are currently newspaper articles highlighting the numbers of deaths due to air pollution, sadly I think it will take more drastic events to have to occur for any change. One sad side effect of Brexit will be the UK no longer being governed by EU emission limits, so we won't be fined. The Government will conveniently get out of having to restrict pollution levels. So perhaps there won't be any change.

 

[NorthernDave]

But isn't part of the problem that any alternative transport scheme has to outline how much it's going to cost HM Treasury in lost taxes as part of the process? Certainly some people are so tied in to using their car that they won't consider the alternatives, yet we also have a government that is so reliant on the taxes raised from cars that they have no real interest in an alternative either.

 

[Flying Dodo]

But isn't part of the problem that any alternative transport scheme has to outline how much it's going to cost HM Treasury in lost taxes as part of the process? Certainly some people are so tied in to using their car that they won't consider the alternatives, yet we also have a government that is so reliant on the taxes raised from cars that they have no real interest in an alternative either.

And yet all the evidence shows that building in proper infrastructure to encourage cycling use provides the biggest return. Vested interests stop the Government changing the current situation.

 

[Slick]

I did say if you weren't in a city then you may well need a car. However 81.5% of the UK population do live in built up urban areas. Most don't need a car as a necessity like food and water- they want one (or more) often for more aspirational reasons. If I want to go somewhere, I get the train. Booking ahead, it's not too expensive, and it's far more relaxing than being stuck in a traffic jam.

Compare the UK to other parts of Europe, and not just places like the Netherlands or Denmark. Their figures for the numbers commuting, travelling or shopping by bike are much higher. It really is shocking in the UK that so many people just pop in their car for a short journey even though it can take far longer than walking or cycling. There are some interesting thoughts on this theme in this blog.

I live in a village about 3 miles from Luton. My next door neighbour drives the 0.5 km to get his daily paper from the local newsagent, even though I can beat him to the newsagents when walking, taking account of the time it then takes him to find a parking spot. He is not the only one to do this, and the parish council is being pressured to create more parking by the shops which would mean digging up part of the local Green. This sort of scenario is commonplace throughout the UK, reflected in the statistics I quoted for the large majority of car journeys being under 5 miles.

Sadly the majority of people in the UK are stuck in this mindset of using cars. And stuck is the operative word, to the detriment of everyone.

I understand where you are coming from, I agree with some of what you say. Embarrassingly, I was as you describe, driving to work which took me around 15 minutes. I will at least try and defend that as I was easily working 16 hour days doing a very physical job, and the last thing on my mind was cycling home. I'm now 15 miles from work, and I cycle through 2 large towns and circumnavigate an international airport to get there. I do this 3 times a week, and drive the other 2, as there is no other alternative. I'm going to assume you have seen this on the news lately as well.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38486011

 

[Slick]

And yet all the evidence shows that building in proper infrastructure to encourage cycling use provides the biggest return. Vested interests stop the Government changing the current situation.

How I wish this was adopted.

 

[User482]

Diesel cars are much worse than trucks and buses:
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...s-more-toxic-than-trucks-and-buses-data-shows

 

[John the Monkey]

Diesel cars are much worse than trucks and buses:
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...s-more-toxic-than-trucks-and-buses-data-shows

I was just about to post that!

The new report from the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), a research group that played a key role in exposing Volkswagen’s cheating, compared the emissions from trucks and buses in realistic driving conditions with those of cars.

It found that heavy-duty vehicles tested in Germany and Finland emitted about 210mg NOx per kilometre driven, less than half the 500mg/km pumped out by modern diesel cars that meet the highest “Euro 6” standard. However, the buses and trucks have larger engines and burn more diesel per kilometre, meaning that cars produce 10 times more NOx per litre of fuel.

 

[mustang1]

Diesel cars are much worse than trucks and buses:
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...s-more-toxic-than-trucks-and-buses-data-shows

Not in my experience. I would rather be stuck behind a diesel car than a diesel bus. I know overall what you say is probably right, but for my commute, I can handle cars giving bad odours gradually, rather than a bus giving a big blast of bad odour when I'm stuck behind it. (it requires more power for it to start moving - it also moves and stops a lot more I guess).

 

[User482]

Not in my experience. I would rather be stuck behind a diesel car than a diesel bus. I know overall what you say is probably right, but for my commute, I can handle cars giving bad odours gradually, rather than a bus giving a big blast of bad odour when I'm stuck behind it. (it requires more power for it to start moving - it also moves and stops a lot more I guess).

It's not me saying it! Bear in mind what we are talking about here is NOx, not particulates.

 

[glasgowcyclist]

My "favourite" on the M8 is the one eastbound that goes to Springburn. Not only does it exit from the right, it also goes downhill sharpish with a pretty tight bend at the bottom. I've seen a few bits of panic braking taking place.

If you're talking about the exit at J15, the 30mph limit starts way before that sharp bend so it's crap driving that'll cause any problems there.