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Drivers who keep their windows down are exposed to 80 percent more air pollution
- cortesoft 6y agoI 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 6y agoIt really depends on the profile of the car. Some have almost no bad pressure/sound effects.
- megablast 6y agoIt’s a real shame spreading pollution everywhere doesn’t bother you as much.
- Hamuko 6y agoIt's like how dog owners aren't concerned over by what environmental damage their pets do, how people buying the latest Samsung phones aren't bothered by how the batteries are mined by children, or how Americans don't care about how disproportionately their lives consume the planet's resources. I assume you're not guilty of anything that brings harm to other people.
- cortesoft 6y agoI drive an electric car charged by solar panels on my house.
- read_if_gay_ 6y agoMy AC is broken and I’m a broke student so I either keep the windows down or die a heat death in these months. Though it’s also kinda chill once you get used to it. The only thing is that my left arm is now noticeably browner than my right arm.
- pacifika 6y agoWind down a second window.
- thunderrabbit 6y ago> air pollution kills an estimated seven million people worldwide every year
- labster 6y agoImagine 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 6y agoTaking your situation at face value, in that case people would spend a lot on filters but keep carbon.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Aachen 6y agoBut what the news has everyone scared of is fission power plants rather than the dirty ones burning stuff... I had a hard time believing this stat when I first read it.
- vosper 6y agoYou 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 6y ago>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 6y agoYou 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 6y agoLong before the industrial revolution. Horse manure and slaughter runoff were huge sources of disease in cities even before coal smoke took over the air.
- kqr 6y ago
- bluejekyll 6y agoProfessor 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 6y agoUnfortunately, 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))
- clouddrover 6y agoA couple of articles on tyre pollution: https://www.emissionsanalytics.com/news/pollution-tyre-wear-worse-exhaust-emissions https://www.emissionsanalytics.com/news/pollution-tyre-wear-... https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/14/world/microplastic-pollution-arctic-air-transport-climate-change-scn/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/14/world/microplastic-pollut...
- jjcm 6y agoI have some very heavy doubts about the validity of their data. Look at their primary findings: "Using a popular family hatchback running on brand new, correctly inflated tyres, we found that the car emitted 5.8 grams per kilometer of particles." Most tires seem to be around 7kg, which means according to their data a car would have all 4 tires reduced to nothing after 4828km. With most tires going bald after ~50,000km (not fully vaporized mind you), there's clearly something wrong here. My guess is they tested brand new tires which may shed particulate quickly at the start, similar to how a new carpet sheds exponentially more at the start.
- cptskippy 6y ago
- antisthenes 6y agoCabin 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 6y ago>put the recirculator on ...and yet, the majority of cars (IME) default to recirc off.
- beenBoutIT 6y agoWhat 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.
- globular-toast 6y agoYes because of CO2 buildup. You need air from outside.
- toastal 6y agoThere also needs to be better emission standards on the other end of the vehicle as well. I've been riding a motorbike, and I hate getting stuck at red lights. I lost my fask mask with an N99, but should we be pumping that much pollution out in the first place?
- intsunny 6y agoIn pandemic times I only ride e-hailed taxies with the window opened at least 50%. Guess it's a matter of picking my poison.
- olivermarks 6y agoEmissions 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-particulate-emissions-from-tire-wear-is-higher-than-from-tailpipes https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1127424_study-particula... 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.108481/ https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/unusual-tire-wear.10...
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y agoThat study is utter nonsense: > 5.8 grams of particulate matter per kilometer Red flag. What kind of contrived conditions did they conspire to create that number? And with regard to Tesla vehicles being heavy, that’s obviously fixed by using wider tyres or harder tyres, in order to get the requisite traction.
- timthorn 6y agoIs it EVs that are heavy on tyre wear, or Teslas specifically? I've not heard issues from the Outlander, Zoe, Prius and Leaf drivers I know, and we talk EVs regularly.
- londons_explore 6y agoI think when you have more torque under your control, you're more tempted to use it, and even a tiny amount of tyre skidding makes a lot of dust. Also, EV's are heavier so will break up the road surface much faster - various studies have shown doubling the weight on a wheel far more than doubles road wear.
- olivermarks 6y agoThere's a lot of data about specifically Tesla being hard on tires, with owners recommending regular alignment to preserve. Doesn't matter if it's a diesel 18 wheeler or an ev though, tire wear is a v major contributor to air pollution, my primary point which was downvoted. I wonder if some sort of air ground effects might alleviate this, like a hovercraft when safe to apply?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- jwilber 6y agoAnother way in which the poor are disproportionately affected. Driving a beater with no AC in the summer? All windows down.
- calibas 6y agoSeems like the focus should be on not poisoning the air in the first place.
- Aachen 6y agoMy 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?!
- pacifika 6y agoIt affects the performance of the car which means it has less sales potential.
- tinco 6y agoNot just the performance, I think the less efficient combustion (from backpressure?) would also lead to more CO and perhaps worse mileage so more CO2. I don't know how the numbers stack up though, maybe you could make the filter really big, like a meter wide or something and the airflow would be good enough? The filter would need replacing/cleaning quite often as well, probably every 10,000km or so.
- hnarn 6y agoIt 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 6y agoSure, 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.
- arielweisberg 6y agoDang, not looking good for the convertible lifestyle.
- Qahlel 6y agoI 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 6y agoIt might not, but your “proper” drivers may be of poor quality and expose you to other issues.
- emptybits 6y agoCruel irony that cyclists, part of the solution, inhale the worst of the problem.
- Jonnax 6y agoI found that wearing an anti pollution mask really was a night and day difference.
- heyoni 6y agoI’d love to hear what you’re using and how you came to settle on that.
- adrianN 6y agoRespro masks were the only ones for which I could google studies showing that they actually filter fine particulates. They are quite expensive though.
- Aachen 6y agoGiven my experience with masks while walking through a supermarket on a hot day, I can't say that doing anything vaguely sportlike with a mask seems extremely unappealing to me. I figured this was some special kind of mask but it sounds like one meant to catch extremely small particles rather than have some special airflow feature. But perhaps it doesn't seem worth it to me because the smog here isn't as bad as where GP is? I've never really seen a haze in cities like Aachen or Eindhoven the way TV shows it is abroad (particularly China comes to mind, but probably car-oriented USA also?).
- danielheath 6y agoYes and no. Riding a bike at your best speed isn’t going to happen with a mask, but I prefer not to work up a sweat while commuting, so I’m not using enough oxygen for the mask to make a difference. That said I might feel differently in a hotter climate.
- netsharc 6y agoHuh, 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 6y agoThe 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_Vehicles_Test_Procedure#/media/File%3AClass_3b.svg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldwide_Harmonised_Light_V... 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.
- strogonoff 6y agoThe 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?
- dustinmoris 6y ago> “ 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 6y agoYou 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.
- hnarn 6y agoWe've had the better part of a hundred years to fix this if we wanted to. The main reason nobody's doing anything about pollution deaths is that it mainly affects poor people. It also mainly affects people in poorer "non-western" countries, with the Western Pacific and the South-East Asia regions dwarfing all other regions. (2012) [1] [1]: https://www.who.int/airpollution/data/AAP_BoD_results_March2014.pdf https://www.who.int/airpollution/data/AAP_BoD_results_March2...
- icebraining 6y agoAccording to figure 2, European regions are in 2nd and 4th places with most deaths per capita, with the value in high-income European countries almost as high as in South-East Asia.
- nickcox 6y agoGP'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?
- jonnypotty 6y agoAm I the only one who noticed the headline and article say completely contradictory things?
- Const-me 6y agoI 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 6y agoI'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?
- AniseAbyss 6y agoI 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.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- guccihat 6y ago"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 6y agoIt 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.
- Terretta 6y agoAnd yet, now, city ride sharing vs. COVID. Recirculated A/C! Fresh A/C! Windows closed! Windows open! Aggggghhh!
- egman_ekki 6y agoInteresting compared to other study showing that cyclists are least exposed to pollution on their commute: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/13/cyclists-exposed-to-less-air-pollution-than-drivers-on-congested-routes-study https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/13/cyclists...
- gruez 6y ago...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
- scrumbledober 6y agosounds like a win-win-win. Less time traveling, less pollution, better exercise.
- Mathnerd314 6y agoThat 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.
- rv-de 6y agoBut if the window is up, nobody can listen to my music. Which is necessary for me to self-medicate my ADD ... :(
- tasssko 6y agoI 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!
- frabbit 6y agoDrivers should have all their car exhaust routed back into the car where it is filtered by their lungs before being expelled. It would be a perfect implementation of nudge theory: their heavily subsidized gasoline and road infrastructure would still cost the same, they would have the convenience of carport to traffic jam to parking lot travel.
- mellosouls 6y ago"Heavily subsidised" is presumably locale-dependent. In my country drivers are very heavily taxed and it's not obvious where the money goes; biggest infrastructure projects are rail. Unfortunately cars are often the only pragmatic option for commute and other travel in non-urban areas.
- devdas 6y agoSounds like most non urban areas should be discouraged.
- mellosouls 6y agoI don't understand what that means - how do you "discourage" social structures that have built up over hundreds and sometimes thousands of years?
- devdas 6y agoTaxes, zoning, mandating higher density housing, apartments with large shared yards over houses with small individual yards, discouraging private transit ... Encourage urban living, not suburban. You can go entirely rural, or high density urban.
- atomicUpdate 6y agoShould we store the exhaust used to transport your food, clothes, etc. in your house also? Seems unfair to punish the delivery man for your consumption.
- giardini 6y agoSponsored 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.]
- Proven 6y agoBig deal. It's like driving 80% more with closed windows. That is, even if you drive for many hours you still get less exposure than a pro driver.
- at_a_remove 6y agoIt'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.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- lliiffee 6y agoI 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.)