Britain gets the hump with NOx emissions
Volkswagen was caught out in 2015 for cheating on its emissions tests, leading as we all know to the Dieselgate scandal.
The company — or rather the entire VW Group — is still dealing with the consequences of its actions, but the consequences are actually extending way beyond the boardrooms of Wolfsburg, Stuttgart or Ingolstadt.
Where once everyone was focused on CO2 emissions, the scandal made everyone look at nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions instead. Diesel vehicles have lower CO2 emissions than petrol vehicles, hence many people switched to diesel when governments and environmental groups worldwide told them it was a good idea. And diesel engines travel further, which is always a good incentive.
Now diesel is bad. Not because of CO2, it is still better than petrol, but because of NOx, and suddenly governments, municipalities and lobby groups are turning on diesel as though they have just discovered that it is petrol’s evil twin that has been trying to kill us quietly all along.
DIFFERENT PLAN
NOx is bad though, so while there might be an angry mob going on, there is no doubt that NOx build-up in cities of the world needs to be reduced. Don’t panic, this does not mean the government in SA is going to introduce a NOx tax on top of the CO2 tax. In fact, it has a totally different plan.
Now though, the NOx issue has led to a situation in the UK where the government there is considering something that noone had really thought of before. Reducing road safety measures. Yes, that seems bizarre, but in new draft proposals released for consultation this month, there is a plan to remove speed bumps in cities which have the highest levels of pollution.
The rationale behind this does make some sense in that emissions increase the more you slow down and speed up in an urban area. Most people slow down for speed humps, so take them away and traffic flow improves and emissions are therefore reduced.
But what about road safety? Surely the whole point of the speed bumps is to reduce motorists’ speed in the interests of saving lives and reducing injuries? The UK government has a plan for this, of course, and that is the implementation of 20mph (32km/h) zones. Some are already in place, particularly around schools and in small villages, but these zones have been introduced to improve safety.
At the moment the proposals are only out for public consultation so there is no guarantee that the removal of speed humps will remain in any eventual legislation. But it does show that the quest to reduce pollution can come at the expense of road safety measures and we are not convinced that this is such a good thing.
SIMILAR MEASURES
It remains to be seen if other governments around the world will adopt similar measures, but the issue is worse here in SA.
We have an urgent need to address road safety and reduce the unacceptably high death toll on our roads, but we also urgently need to reduce pollution. In a country where our emissions regulations are a long way behind those of the UK and our fuel quality is unacceptably poor, we must tackle the basics of pollution and the basics of road safety at the same time and that will require government and agencies to put much more effort into both.
IT DOES SHOW THAT THE QUEST TO REDUCE POLLUTION CAN COME AT THE EXPENSE OF ROAD SAFETY MEASURES