Tag Archives: Air Pollution

Air Pollution and the Widespread Misinformation on It

Posted on by
2

There have been a lot of claims by Sadiq Khan about the deaths caused by air pollution in London so as to justify his expansion of the ULEZ but his claims are unsubstantiated by the evidence available.

I have a strong personal interest in this matter because my father died from lung disease (mesothelioma – a cancer caused by exposure to asbestos), my brother died from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (a lung disease for which there is no known cause) and I suffered from asthma when young due to allergies to pollen and other things. Anyone who has suffered from asthma or seen people die from lung disease will know how distressing it is.

It is known that air pollution can exacerbate asthma symptoms which I can confirm from my own personal experience but whether it can cause asthma is unclear. Even now I avoid walking behind London diesel buses! The onset of asthma can be triggered by many things and is a growing problem worldwide probably because of the change in lifestyles of the population and increased urbanisation. The largest source of air pollution is often in homes and offices and people spend more time in them and lead a sedentary life style as they become wealthier.

To attack air pollution in the hope that we can prevent all lung disease is misconceived. In particular to attack diesel/petrol cars in the hope of removing air pollution is a simplistic notion when there are multiple other sources of air pollution. If Sadiq Khan thinks he can cure his late-onset asthma (which he claims to have) then he is not living in the real world.

The air pollution sources in the UK in 2018 is given in the diagram above taken from a Public Health England report. Note that road transport only produces 12.4% of all PM 2.5 (particulate) emissions whereas residential and small commercial combustion produces 43.1%.

For London in 2019 you can refer to this report from the LAEI: https://cleanair.london/app/uploads/CAL-458-LAEI-2019-Summary-Note-FINAL-V2.pdf

Note how over 50% of PM2.5 emissions in central London come from commercial cooking! That report also shows how emissions of particulates and NOX (nitrous oxides) have been falling rapidly across London. This is not just due to the ULEZ and Congestion Charge schemes which probably only had minor impacts but a general improvement in energy production, heating and industrial processes.

The Freedom for Drivers Foundation published this report in 2018 (revised in 2021) called “Air Quality and Vehicles: The Truth” – see Report . It provides a well-reasoned and unbiased analysis of the data unlike so many of the comments you see on this subject. The situation since it was published has no doubt improved even further.

There is simply no justification for extending the ULEZ scheme. The reduction in air pollution in Greater London would be miniscule – about 0.1% in the important PM2.5 emissions for example. Nobody is going to notice this and it won’t have any significant impact on health outcomes. See https://freedomfordrivers.blog/2022/09/07/ulez-expansion-assessment-a-complete-fraud/ for the independent analysis commissioned by TfL (Jacobs Report).

There are many things the London Mayor and the Government could do about air pollution but expanding attacks on vehicle owners is one of the least beneficial in terms of cost/benefits. Reducing wood burning is one which the Government has recently tackled for example.

Removing air pollution might have some long-term health benefits although the likely benefit is uncertain. Removing all of it might extend life by a few days but to do that we would have to remove all road, rail and air transport, remove all domestic gas boilers, close down all restaurants, ban cooking at home, cease all agriculture, cease all new building and building renovation, close down most of industry, etc. How lunatic would such a policy be!

I am all for improving air quality where it can be achieved at reasonable cost and with no negative consequences. But expanding the ULEZ scheme will increase the cost of living for many people when they are already suffering from high inflation. It is simply unjustified and Sadiq Khan’s motivation despite his blustering about the impact on health is clearly motivated by financial imperatives.

Roger Lawson

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Drivers_London

You can “follow” this blog by entering your email address in the box below.  You will then receive an email alerting you to new posts as they are added.

Travel in London Report – Mayor’s Objectives Not Met

Posted on by
4

Before Christmas Transport for London (TfL) published its 14th Report on Travel in London. It’s basically a collection of data on transport trends in the capital. At 263 pages I’ll only provide a brief summary of some of the key points here – see link below for the full report.

Pandemic Impact

The Report includes data showing the impact of the pandemic. By November 2021 the demand for public transport overall was down to around 70% from pre-pandemic levels. London Underground was 65% and bus demand was about 75%. But road traffic only reduced to about 95% as people chose to avoid using public transport by using private transport (i.e. cars or PHVs) or walking.

Walking actually increased substantially and cycling did increase but mainly for leisure cycling at weekends. Weekday peak commuter travel is not recovering rapidly as there is more working from home, and this is particularly noticeable in central London.

Mode Share

The mode share proportion since 2000 is shown in the above chart. You can see that despite the encouragement for cycling in recent years and particularly by the LTNs of late, cycling has remained a very small proportion and any increase during the pandemic was mainly for leisure.

To quote from page 11 of the Report: “The overall active, efficient and sustainable mode share for travel in 2020 is estimated at 58.3 per cent, compared to 63.2 per cent in 2019”. That includes walking, cycling and public transport use, although why public transport should be considered “sustainable” is not clear. But clearly the effect of the pandemic has been to frustrate the Mayor’s objective to get us all out of our cars and increase “sustainable travel” modes to 80% by 2041. In fact, the active travel mode objective of 20 minutes per day (walking/cycling) for 70% of the population has instead fallen to 35% in the latest quarter probably due to less by those working from home.

Air Pollution

The Report contains some data on air pollution some of which comes from road and other transport of course. But it shows how air pollution has been substantially reducing in the last few years. One interesting comment in the Report is that “The Mayor’s Transport Strategy set a target for London to be a zero carbon city by 2050. However, the Mayor has recently called for this to be brought forward to 2030, recognising the importance of the climate change emergency we face”. That’s news to me. So a diesel/petrol car bought this year might be banned in eight years time if the Mayor has his way!

London’s Population

The good news is that limited data suggests the population of London has decreased with significant reductions in international inward migration. The pandemic has deterred international travel while Londoners have moved out to homes in the country and there may have been some “excess deaths” from the pandemic.

Low Traffic Neighbourhoods

The Report comments on the Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) on page 123 but the data reported is very selective and biased. They conclude with this statement: “In summary, LTNs have a wide range of different and interconnected impacts but the evidence suggests that these are largely positive and that it is in the longer term where most of the benefits become apparent. Therefore, TfL shall continue to support and, where appropriate, conduct further research for a complete and thorough evaluation of LTN impacts”. It seems they have not yet accepted that the majority of residents do not support LTNs as is clear from recent surveys and public consultations in local boroughs, Lewisham being the latest one which we will comment on later.

Traffic Congestion

A section of the Report covers traffic congestion (pages 143 on). It reports that over the last decade “A slow but generally consistent trend of reducing traffic volumes in central and inner London…”; “Traffic volumes in outer London have, however, grown over this period; and “Generally lower car traffic, higher freight traffic, particularly LGVs, and dramatic changes to the numbers of private hire vehicles”. But this comment shows the impact of the Mayor’s policies: “Continued reductions to the effective capacity of London’s roads, generally reflecting other Mayoral priorities such as reducing road danger, requiring enhanced operational management of the road network”. Yes as we all know, London has become more congested in the last few years due to damaging policies.

There has been an allegation widely reported that traffic on minor roads in London has increased substantially in recent years but the Report contradicts that. It says: “Notably, the volume estimates for London’s major roads remained broadly unchanged, and there was no evidence of an (observed) increasing year-on-year trend in minor road traffic from available independent data over the preceding decade”. It seems the claimed increase might have been an aberration based on misleading statistical data.

How do you measure traffic congestion? One way is by traffic speed but that can be misleading. The best way is to look at “excess delay” which compares actual travel time versus that under “free-flow” conditions. The Report actually shows some data on this which is the first for some time to my knowledge. The chart below shows congestion worsening from 2010 and particularly in the period 2015-2019, but a big improvement thereafter as travel generally was reduced due to the pandemic. But it is still worse than ten years ago!

In conclusion, the Travel in London Report does contain some very interesting data, albeit distorted by the pandemic as travel patterns and volume changed. But it shows how defective has been the Mayor’s Transport Strategy as people have resisted change to modes while road capacity has been reduced.

Travel in London Report 14: https://content.tfl.gov.uk/travel-in-london-report-14.pdf

Roger Lawson

You can “follow” this blog by entering your email address in the box below.  You will then receive an email alerting you to new posts as they are added.

The LTN, Air Pollution and Climate Emergency in Lewisham

Posted on by
1

The justification for the Low Traffic Neighbourhood (LTN) scheme in Lewisham was spelled out by Mayor Damien Egan in his webinar on the 22ndOctober (see https://tinyurl.com/LTNResidentsMeeting to watch a recording).

He said that the reasons the LTN was proposed was to a) Improve Air Quality; b) Making streets safer by reducing car journeys; and c) Making it easier to walk and cycle. He also said “road traffic is the number one cause of toxic air and toxic air kills”. Unfortunately he is wrong in several respects.

Toxic air is usually judged to be based on the level of particulates (dust) in the air and the level of nitrous oxides (NOX), although there is some debate as to whether NOX (mainly NO2) is actually damaging to health. Particulates, namely PM 2.5, are the major concern and to quote from the report in Reference 1 below “Road transport accounts for around a quarter of PM2.5 in London, with a large proportion also coming from construction, wood burning and commercial cooking”.

We covered the issue of the contribution of vehicles to air quality in a report we published two years ago – see Reference 2. The Conclusion in that report said this:

“In conclusion, let it be clear that we are supportive of improving air quality in the UK, particularly in urban areas and on particular roads where transport is a major generator of emissions. But there is no public health crisis and measures to improve air quality should be both reasonable and moderate. According to a recent report from Defra, since 1970 NOx emissions have fallen by 72% and Particulates (PM2.5) by 79%. The hysteria about air pollution is wrongly being used to generate tax revenues to local government (e.g. the ULEZ in London and similar proposals for other UK cities) without any justification in terms of cost/benefits. The likely improvement in air quality that will result will be unlikely to be noticed by residents because it will simply be too small and it will have no significant long-term impact on health”.

Even if you consider NOX to be of concern as a lot of it does come from transport, in practice LTNs mainly affect car users while the majority of NOX comes from buses and commercial vehicles – only 33% comes from petrol or diesel cars – see Reference 3 for the data from 2013 and it’s probably considerably less now.

Does “toxic air” kill, as the Mayor said? In reality it is very unlikely that the level of air pollution in Lewisham kills anyone at all. If you live on one of the worst streets for air pollution such as on the “A” roads where there is heavy traffic (particularly HGVs and buses), it is possible that life expectancy might be shortened by a few days. But you are likely to experience more exposure to particulates from domestic cooking and heating than from road transport. The exposure of smokers is also many times worse. Your life expectancy is most dependent on your lifestyle, domestic and work environments, not on background air pollution.

The Mayor also suggested that the streets would be safer if car journeys were reduced but diverting the journeys to main roads as the LTN is doing is not going to help. The accidents will move also to roads where higher speeds may be present. There is no evidence that overall road casualties will reduce by such an approach. In practice LTNs do not reduce car journeys significantly if a wider area is considered – they just divert journeys to longer routes.

As regards the comment that the LTN will make it easier to walk and cycle, there is no obvious problem in using either of those modes in the LTN and reducing traffic will not assist.     

Another justification given in the webinar for the LTN was by CEO Kim Wright who said it supported the Climate Emergency Strategic Action Plan adopted by the Borough – see Reference 4. Many Lewisham Councillors clearly believe they are helping to save the world from global warming by cutting CO2 emissions. Without getting into a debate on the science of global warming, you can see how futile that is in terms of actions possible by the London Borough of Lewisham by considering this data:

Lewisham emitted 805,000 tonnes of CO2 in 2017/2018 which is 0.2% of UK emissions of 354 million tonnes in 2019. The UK proportion of world emissions is about 1%, so Lewisham’s contribution to world emissions is 0.2% of 1%, i.e. 0.002%. The UK is taking vigorous actions to reduce overall emissions while countries such as China (28% of world emissions) are still building hundreds of coal-fired power plants. Any actions by Lewisham will have negligible impact on emissions in the UK let alone the world, and actions to tackle excessive CO2 emissions should be taken at a national level where it can be most effective.

In fact LTNs are unlikely to have any impact on CO2 emissions for another reason. Over 50% of CO2 emissions arise in housing – mainly domestic heating, and only 14.7% arise from cars.

In summary the main reason for the introduction of LTNs in Lewisham given by the Mayor of Lewisham simply do not stand up to scrutiny. The dogma about the need to reduce vehicles on our roads is not only unjustifiable on any cost/benefit analysis, it is simply unjustifiable full stop.

This virtue signalling by Lewisham councillors is imposing enormous inconvenience and costs on Lewisham residents that cannot be justified. Journey times have increased enormously, while air pollution on roads that already had high levels has clearly worsened.

Low Traffic Neighbourhoods do not solve anything and are based on irrational opposition to the use of vehicles which the world has come to rely on.

Roger Lawson

Reference 1: Air Pollution Monitoring Data in London: https://tinyurl.com/y57nucz9

Reference 2: Air Quality and Vehicles: The Truth: https://tinyurl.com/yx9bk9kg

Reference 3: Lewisham Air Quality Action Plan (2016-2021): https://tinyurl.com/y2n684bz

Reference 4; Lewisham Climate Emergency Strategic Action Plan: https://tinyurl.com/y34bwcnj

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Drivers_London

You can “follow” this blog by clicking on the bottom right in most browsers or by using the Contact page (see under the About tab) to send us a message requesting. You will then receive an email alerting you to new posts as they are added.

Does Closing Roads Reduce Air Pollution and Improve Health?

Posted on by
1

The Freedom for Drivers Foundation has long argued that there is way too much scaremongering about the impact on people’s health of air pollution. We published a paper two years ago (see Reference 1 below) that in summary said that we believe it is not a major health crisis but simply a major health scare fed to a gullible public by a few politicians and by journalists wanting a story. We also criticised the relative contribution of vehicles to existing air pollution. Most air pollution arises from home and office heating, building and industrial activities and from home activities such as cooking and smoking.

Is there actually a public health crisis? The simple answer is NO. The evidence does not support such claims. In reality air quality has been steadily improving and will continue to do so from technical improvements to heating and vehicles. Meanwhile life expectancy has been increasing. There is no public health crisis!

The Covid-19 epidemic has given a great opportunity to see the likely impact of removing cars and other vehicles from the roads as businesses closed down and home working spread like wildfire.

The Daily Mail (see Reference 2) has reported on a study by Stirling University with the headlines: “Decline in vehicle use in lockdown had no impact on reducing toxic particle emissions and suggests traffic is ‘not a key contributor to air pollution” and “It found no significant fall in harmful toxic particulate matter – known as PM2.5” based on roadside measurements. That was despite a 65% fall in traffic.

Particulates are more dangerous than NOX and as people spent more time at home, they may have increased their exposure to them. But it is clear that removing vehicles from the roads does not cut particulate emissions.  Although NO2 levels fell, which mainly come from transport, the Mail article suggests that might cut attributable deaths but in reality there is no certainty about the impact of NOX emissions on life expectancy and it may be a totally spurious claim.

We have also recently debunked the alleged claim linking asthma to NOX emissions. There are a number of possible causes for asthma and very poor air conditions (worse than generally experienced) can trigger or exacerbate attacks, but one has to be very careful about a specific linkage.

Life expectancy data tells us that there is no air pollution health crisis. But London boroughs such as Lewisham argue we have to remove vehicles from our streets as a matter of urgency – see Reference 5 for Lewisham air quality data.

A lot of published data on air quality and sources of air pollution are out of date as road transport has rapidly changed as vehicles are replaced. Less than 50% of air pollution in London now comes from vehicles and stopping private cars will have minimal impact as most vehicle emissions come from buses and goods vehicles.

Another problem is that much of London’s air pollution blows in from outside the metropolis. According to London Councils (see the report in Reference 6), 75% of particulates actually originate from elsewhere.

In summary, closing roads to reduce vehicles in London generally, and in boroughs such as Lewisham specifically, based on a claimed need to reduce vehicle emission makes no sense at the present time. The recent epidemic impact when vehicles were much reduced shows that there was nil or minimal impact on air quality so it would be a pointless exercise.

In reality the Low Traffic Neighbourhoods introduced in boroughs such as Lewisham has diverted traffic onto main roads and created more traffic congestion. It also means longer routes have to be driven and traffic piles up on residential roads (see photo of Horncastle Road above). Overall air quality has surely been made worse as is clear from residents’ comments on the impact. These “experiments” to cut traffic should be abandoned now!

Reference 1: Air Quality and Vehicles – The Truth: https://www.freedomfordrivers.org/_files/ugd/8ec181_ab00306f347f4046b6a950cdcaa2cdc6.pdf

Reference 2: Daily Mail article: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/cars/article-8710499/Decline-vehicle-journeys-lockdown-did-NOT-reduce-emissions-toxic-particles.html

Refence 5: Lewisham air quality data:  https://lewisham.gov.uk/myservices/environment/air-pollution/read-our-air-quality-action-plan-and-other-reports

Reference 6: London Council’s Report “Demystifying Air Pollution in London”: https://www.londoncouncils.gov.uk/node/33224

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Drivers_London

You can “follow” this blog by clicking on the bottom right in most browsers or by using the Contact page to send us a message requesting. You will then receive an email alerting you to new posts as they are added.

Air Pollution in Lewisham

Posted on by
2

One of the justifications given for the “Healthy Neighbourhoods” schemes in Lee Green and Lewisham is that it will cut air pollution. It has even been suggested that it will contribute to saving the world from climate change (Lewisham Council has declared a “climate emergency”) when in reality any reduction in CO2 emissions in the UK will have negligible impact on total world emissions. The UK only produces 1% of CO2 emissions with China and the US being by far the biggest producers. That’s even assuming that CO2 is the major determinant of climate change which many people do not accept.

But the argument goes that removing vehicles from the roads of Lee Green will reduce atmospheric pollution significantly. The reality is very different. Let’s look at the facts.

A recent publication by Lewisham Council said “Domestic gas and electricity accounted for more than half of the boroughs carbon emissions”. Most domestic heating and that for offices, shops and schools is gas central heating which are major sources. In reality diesel and petrol cars contribute only 12% and 6% respectively of all emissions in London and they are falling rapidly – see our full report on the subject here: https://www.freedomfordrivers.org/_files/ugd/8ec181_ab00306f347f4046b6a950cdcaa2cdc6.pdf . There are many other sources such as cooking, wood burning stoves and industrial processes apart from emissions from larger vehicles such as HGVs which are not present on most roads in Lee Green due to width and other restrictions.

There is also a very busy train line that runs through the area via Hither Green station which undoubtedly contributes to particulate pollution. The whole area is also covered by speed humps on all the minor roads which is well known to increase air pollution very substantially – see  https://freedomfordrivers.blog/2016/06/13/speed-humps-and-air-pollution/ for details.

Air pollution in Lewisham has probably increased in recent years because of the growing population and “densification” of the borough. More people means more emissions of all kinds because human activity generates them. Cutting out road vehicles alone will not reduce them significantly and the proposed scheme will not reduce vehicle numbers – residents who own cars will just be taking longer routes to go anywhere thus generating more emissions to offset the small numbers who choose to walk or cycle more.

The proposals for Healthy Neighbourhoods in Lee Green and Lewisham will have negligible impact on air pollution or CO2 emissions and might actually increase them, particularly on certain roads. That is the only conclusion that can be drawn. If the Council really wanted to reduce air pollution, they would take other steps and adopt other policies.

I have asked Lewisham Council for the data to substantiate their claims about the impact of the Healthy Neighbourhood proposals and the current air pollution sources but have yet to receive an answer.

Roger Lawson

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Drivers_London

You can “follow” this blog by entering your email address below. You will then receive an email alerting you to new posts as they are added.

The Population Growth Problem and Trump at Davos

Posted on by
Reply

7.7 Billion and Growing. That was the subtitle of a BBC TV Horizon programme last night on population. Chris Packham was the presenter. He said the world’s population was 5 million 10,000 years ago but by 2050 it is forecast to be 10 billion. He showed the impact of excessive population on biodiversity and on rubbish generation with lots of other negative impacts on the environment. It is surely one of the most important things to think about at present, and will have major economic impacts if not tackled.

The big growth is coming in countries such as Brazil and Nigeria. Sao Paolo is now 5 times the size of London and it’s running out of water. So are many other major cities including London. The growth in population is being driven by better healthcare, people living longer but mainly via procreation. A stable population requires 2.1 babies per family, but it is currently 2.4. In Nigeria it’s 5!

In some countries it is lower than that. It’s 1.7 in the UK (but population is growing from immigration) and it’s 1.4 in Japan where an ageing population is creating social and economic problems.

The FT ran an editorial on the 14th of January suggesting population in Europe needed to be boosted but it received a good rebuke in a letter published today from Lord Hodgson. He said “Global warming comes about as a result of human activity, and the more humans the more activity.  This is before counting the additional costs of the destruction of the natural world and the depletion of the world’s resources. In these circumstances suggesting there is a need for more people seems irresponsible”.

I completely agree with Lord Hodgson and the concerns of Chris Packham. The latter is a patron of a campaigning charity to restrain the growth in population called Population Matters (see  https://populationmatters.org/ ). Making a donation or becoming a member might assist.

For a slightly different view in Davos President Trump made a speech decrying the alarmist climate views and saying “This is a time for optimism, to reject the perennial prophets of doom and their predictions of the apocalypse”. He was followed by a 17-year old with limited education who said just that and got more coverage in some of the media. I believe Trump and moderate environmental writers like Matt Ridley who suggest we can handle rises in world temperature and that the future is still rosy. But we surely do need to tackle the problem of a growing world population.

Too much population has a direct impact on air pollution and traffic congestion in London and the rest of the UK. More people means more vehicles – not just cars and buses but for delivery of goods.

Chris Packham reported how population reduction was done somewhat too aggressively in India and China but there are other ways to do it via education and financial incentives. Just ensuring enough economic growth in poorer countries will reduce population growth to the minimum. Let’s get on with it!

Roger Lawson

(Twitter: https://twitter.com/Drivers_London  ).

You can “follow” this blog by clicking on the bottom right.

 

 

 

More Air Pollution Scaremongering from the British Heart Foundation

Posted on by
1

The British Heart Foundation (BHF) have issued a press release which claims that heart attack and stroke deaths related to air pollution could exceed 160,000 by 2030. The charity says air pollution presents a major public health emergency which the Government must urgently address.

What is the basis for this claim? It relies on an “estimate” of deaths attributable to particulate air pollution and on research they have funded. One of those research studies looked at how nanoparticles of gold were absorbed into the blood after inhalation and were retained for some time. They claim this is analogous to PM2.5 particulates in vehicle emissions. But they don’t prove any link to actual heart disease or deaths. Other studies of the impact of small particulates have failed to show any impact on health or life expectancy.

The BHF is a typical large charity that raised £138 million last year. Only 72% of the money raised was actually spent on medical research or other charitable activities. The rest was spent on fund raising. It is a very professionally run organisation with a well-designed web site. The CEO got paid £211,105 in 2108-19.

They are effectively using such scare-mongering to raise funds for the charity by running a “toxic air campaign” if you look at their web site. In other words, they have a direct financial incentive to promote this idea and exaggerate the impact of air pollution on health. They have jumped on the bandwagon of all the air pollution scaremongers.

Vehicles will no doubt get the blame for these scares, but in reality air pollution from vehicles has negligible impact on people’s health or life expectancy. See https://www.abd.org.uk/air-quality-vehicles-truth/ for the evidence.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Drivers_London

You can “follow” this blog by clicking on the bottom right.

 

 

Why Cost/Benefit Analysis Is So Important

Posted on by
Reply

The world is becoming full of irrationality. Political decisions seem to be driven more by emotion than by science of late and all we see on television news are human interest stories rather than facts and analysis.

This creates an atmosphere where those who shout loudest are listened to while quiet scientific analysis is dumped. Thus organisations such as Extinction Rebellion get lots of publicity and media personalities such as Greta Thunberg get massive coverage however wrong they are.

But emotions drive bad decisions.

Let’s consider the issue of road safety for example. Everyone recognises that there are still too many deaths and serious injuries on our roads, many or which might be avoided. But if we decide this is a major national priority on which money should be spent (i.e. from taxes), where do we spend it? A rational person would say “spend it on the most cost-effective proposals because that way we will save the most lives or injuries for a given amount of expenditure”. Bearing in mind there are limited financial resources in any Government, this has to be the best approach.

But there are various ways to reduce casualties, which includes:

  • Redesigning roads to make them safer, including tackling known blackspots.
  • Improved driver training and tougher tests for new drivers.
  • Improving in-car safety by better engineered vehicles.
  • Improving emergency medical treatment after an accident.
  • Cutting ambulance response times.
  • Reducing traffic speeds that might reduce casualty severity.
  • Exhortations to drivers to take more care with publicity campaigns.

You can probably think of some others that might help but the first four of the above have probably had the most impact in the last few years on casualty reduction. Where should the money be spent? What provides the best cost/benefit ratio is the answer.

At the lower level, if we decide that money spent on improving roads is worthwhile, then where do we spend it? The answer is again simple – on those locations where the money will save the most casualties. But many local councils ignore that approach and simply listen to local pressure groups.

Or at the higher level, should the Government spend money on road safety, on improving hospitals, or on improving home safety. For example about 1,700 people die in road accidents each year in the UK, but there are about 6,000 deaths each year from accidents in the home, and 40,000 deaths from cancer. The latter might be susceptible to more expenditure on treatment or research, while many home deaths are due to falls down stairs. Should the Government invest in lifts for all multi-storey homes or only allow bungalows to be built in future? Some 55% of injuries in the home are burns caused by cooking. Should the Government ban cooking?

You can see how this whole field is a minefield of conflicts of interest and instead of rational analysis people tend to spend money where they think it might help or based on traditional ideas. But the answer is to evaluate the cost versus the benefit on a simple uniform financial measure.

The benefit of saving a life, or a serious injury, can be valued and the Department for Transport regularly publishes their figures for those costs – currently it’s about £2 million for a fatality, £250,000 for a serious injury and £25,000 for a minor injury. One can dispute how it is calculated and how optimistic or pessimistic that figure is, but it does provide some basis for working out how much should be spent on saving a death. In addition there are many more minor accidents than KSIs (about 100 times the fatalities), and minor accidents are easier to value because you can simply add up the medical treatment costs, the lost employment time, the emergency services costs and then ask the victims how much they would have paid to avoid the injury. So the overall costs can be roughly estimated with some accuracy.

A similar calculation is made for many other purposes – for example, what is the benefit of treating a patient with a life saving drug versus its cost? Or how by how many years will their life be extended and how do you value an extension of life? Such calculations are a regular element in public policy decisions, although there are few hard guidelines on the subject at present.

The above indicates how the benefits might be calculated. To offset those one has to work out the costs. That includes in the case of revised road schemes, the construction cost of course, but there are often costs (or savings) imposed on road users. For example, in the recently discussed case of the Chislehurst War Memorial Traffic Lights (see https://tinyurl.com/y56v2rty ) where it was proposed to install a Pelican Crossing, the costs are not just the construction cost but the on-going costs imposed on the road users by the extra delays and traffic queues of having a pedestrian phase in the lights. In addition there are the negative costs of more accidents on minor roads due to traffic diversion to avoid the jams, and more air pollution from the stationary queues of traffic. These can all be estimated.

On the subject of air pollution, we currently have a lot of debate about the impact of that and what should be done to improve it. But there is typically little cost/benefit analysis. In reality, even if all air pollution was removed (an impossible task as a lot of it comes from natural sources), it might only extend the average population life by a few days. Meanwhile in London alone hundreds of millions of pounds of costs are being imposed on residents in the name of solving the problem. The cost/benefit on the ABD’s calculations for the London ULEZ scheme is extremely negative – see https://tinyurl.com/y4w6pwuk for the figures. Even Birmingham Council produced a negative figure when trying to justify their CAZ scheme but they still decided to go ahead.

This is public policy making turned on its head. The fact that both such schemes will generate large amounts of revenue for the Mayor of London and Birmingham Council was perhaps a more important part of their considerations! These “taxes” are an irrational imposition on the public and are not even an efficient way of collecting taxes.

Transport for London (TfL) have even given up on publishing any cost/benefit analyses of most new road schemes mainly because the figures when calculated show that they are simply uneconomic. Or they publish figures that are distorted by not including all the costs – for example on their “Safer Speed” plans.

Public life is being corrupted by the approach of relying on emotion to make decisions or by other motives rather than on a proper cost/benefit analysis. We need more politicians who are better educated and understand these issues, and the general public also needs to become better informed on these matters.

Roger Lawson

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Drivers_London

You can “follow” this blog by clicking on the bottom right.

Press Release: How Do Politicians Create Taxable Air Pollution Scares?

Posted on by
Reply

Hardly a day goes by without a new study claiming to ‘link’ particulate matter (PM2.5) in outdoor air to deaths or diseases, even from short term exposure.

In short, the answer is ‘Epidemiology,’ which is the study of the distribution and determinants of diseases in populations. It works well when a disease has a single cause like a virus, for example, but it is unable to reliably attribute a single cause to a disease that has multiple potential causes. Air pollution studies do NOT measure the actual exposure of individuals to outside or indoor air. Indeed some studies do not even measure the level of air pollution, they model it instead. Epidemiology relies on statistics in order to try and correlate cause with effect, but one of the principle caveats of science is that ‘correlation isn’t necessarily causation.’ Indeed, margarine consumption in Maine produces a 99% correlation with divorce, but no one believes that margarine is linked to divorce (1).

The ignored ‘elephant in the room’ is the fact that a smoker inhales 10,000 to 40,000 microgrammes per cubic metre of PM2.5 from a single cigarette (2) in a few minutes, which is the equivalent to the PM2.5 inhaled over 50 to 200 days by a non-smoker from outdoor air. (A microgramme is a millionth of a gramme). Smoking cessation studies show that a pack-a-day smoker who gives up after 20 years will have the same 80-year life expectancy as a non-smoker and the same risk of cardiovascular disease at the age of 55 (3), despite inhaling 2kg of PM2.5 over the 20-year period compared to 60g for the 80-year lifetime of a non-smoker.  This challenges the claims of deaths from short-term exposure to PM2.5 as well as permanent damage.

The motorised transport-dependent economy is in danger of being further over-regulated and punitively taxed on the basis of soundbite headlines in the media, derived from epidemiological studies, that do not stand up to proper scientific scrutiny. Politicians are only too happy to parrot pseudo-scientific soundbites as justification for CAZ and ULEZ schemes, which massively fail any genuine cost-benefit analysis, taking tens of millions of pounds out of local economies for little or no health benefits in return. Let’s be clear; there is absolutely no scientific evidence linking levels of PM2.5 in outdoor air with deaths or diseases in the UK.

600,000 people die in the UK each year from all causes, which are defined on death certificates and coroners reports. No one dies from air pollution. Since 1970, emissions of PM2.5 have fallen by 79% and Nitrogen dioxide by 72% (4).

A very large peer reviewed study (2017) on California air quality and acute deaths 2000 to 2012 found no association of acute deaths with levels of PM2.5 or ozone (5).

A 2019 peer reviewed paper exposes the bias and flaws in p-values and meta-analysis in papers linking short-term air pollution exposure to heart attacks (6).

25 peer reviewed publications 1995 to 2018 show no association between PM2.5 and mortality (7).

According to the British Heart Foundation, since 1961 the UK death rate from heart and circulatory disease has declined by more than 75%. Death rates have fallen more quickly than the actual number of deaths due to increased life expectancy.

The Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollution (COMEAP, 2018) could not unanimously link NO2 to mortality (8).

<ENDS>

Notes for Editors

(1) Spurious correlations: Margarine linked to divorce?https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27537142

(2) National Research Council. Environmental tobacco smoke: measuring exposures and assessing health effects. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press; 1986.

(3) New smoking cessation study (2018) debunks EPA’s PM2.5 death claims:

https://junkscience.com/2018/11/new-smoking-cessation-study-debunks-epas-pm2-5-death-claims/#more-94964

(4) Emissions of air pollutants in the UK, 1970 to 2017:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/emissions-of-air-pollutants

(5) Air quality and acute deaths in California, 2000 – 2012:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0273230017301538

(6) Evaluation of meta-analysis of air quality and heart attacks, a case study (2019):

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10408444.2019.1576587

(7) Negative studies on PM2.5 and mortality:

https://junkscience.com/2018/06/negative-studies-and-pm2-5/

(8) COMEAP (2018):

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nitrogen-dioxide-effects-on-mortality/associations-of-long-term-average-concentrations-of-nitrogen-dioxide-with-mortality-2018-comeap-summary

London Congestion – It’s Only Going to Get Worse

Posted on by
Reply

London Population Trend

As anyone who has lived in London for more than a few years probably knows, the population of the metropolis has been rapidly rising. This has resulted in ever worse congestion not just on the roads but on public transport also. The roads are busier, rush hours have extended and London Underground cannot handle the numbers who wish to travel on some lines during peak hours. Even bus ridership has been declining as the service has declined in reliability and speed due to traffic jams.

The Greater London Authority (GLA) has published some projections of future population numbers for the capital and the conclusion can only be that life is going to get worse for Londoners over the next few years.

The current population is about 8.8 million but is forecast to grow to 10.4 million by 2041, i.e. an 18% increase. This increase is driven primarily by the number of births and declining death rates. The relatively high numbers of births in comparison with what one might expect is because London has a relatively youthful population. One can guess this is the case because of the high numbers of migration from overseas which results in a net positive international migration figure while domestic migration to/from the rest of the UK is a net negative, i.e. Londoners are being replaced by immigrants.

But population increase in London does not have to be so. The chart above shows you the trend over the last 100 years and as you can see London has only recently reached the last peak set in 1939. During the 1960s to 1990s the population fell. What changed? In that period there was a policy to reduce overcrowding in London and associated poor housing conditions by encouraging relocation of people and businesses to “new towns”. But when Ken Livingstone took power he adopted policies of encouraging more growth. His successors have continued with those policies and have promoted immigration, e.g. with Sadiq Khan’s “London is Open” policy.

Many Londoners complain about the air pollution in the London conurbation without understanding that the growth in businesses and population have directly contributed to that problem. More people mean more home and office heating, more transport (mainly by HGVs and LGVs) to supply the goods they require, more emissions from cooking, and many other sources. The Mayor thinks he can solve the air pollution issues by attacking private car use and ensuring goods vehicles have lower emissions but he is grossly mistaken in that regard. The problem is simply too many people.

Building work also contributes to more emissions substantially so home and office building does not help. But the demand for new homes does not keep pace with the population growth resulting in many complaints that people have to live in cramped apartments or cannot find anywhere suitable to live at all. Likewise new public transport capacity does not keep pace with the increased demand. There is some more capacity on the Underground but only on some lines and not much while Crossrail which might have helped has been repeatedly delayed.

The economy of London is still buoyant.  But all the disadvantages of overcrowding in London mean that Londoners are poorer in many ways. Those who can move out by using long-distance commuting or relocating permanently thus leaving London to be occupied by young immigrants.

Any Mayor who had any sense would develop a new policy to discourage immigration, encourage birth control and encourage emigration to elsewhere in the UK or the Rest of the World. But I doubt Sadiq Khan will do so because a poorer population actually helps him to get elected.

If Sadiq Khan wanted Londoners to live in a greener, pleasanter city with a better quality of life then he would change direction. But I fear only intervention by central Government will result in any change. In the meantime those who live in London might like to tackle their potential MPs, Greater London Assembly Members and prospective Mayors for what they would do about the problems covered in this article.

Go here for more details of the GLA projections of London’s population: https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/projections-documentation

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Drivers_London

You can “follow” this blog by clicking on the bottom right.