Do you currently own a diesel car?
Hundreds of doctors, nurses and other health workers are calling on the Prime Minister to take action to get polluting diesel vehicles off the UK’s roads as soon as possible.
The recently formed Doctors Against Diesel group is campaigning for greater awareness of the health impacts of diesel emissions and for action to reduce the number of vehicles using the polluting fuel in towns and cities.
Air pollution from sources including factories and vehicles, particularly diesel engines, is linked to the early deaths of about 40,000 people a year in the UK – and causes problems such as heart and lung diseases and asthma.
Nearly 300 health professionals have written to Theresa May, highlighting evidence of the impacts of pollutants including nitrogen dioxide and soot, particularly for children, and calling for a diesel reduction initiative.
It doesn’t seem that long ago that we were encouraged to buy diesel cars over petrol fuelled engines. Ownership of diesel cars has more than trebled in the last 15 years – driven by misguided government tax incentives that identified diesel as a ‘green’ fuel. Almost 1.3million new diesels were registered last year, 48 per cent of all car purchases, according to figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.
What are your views? Do you drive a diesel car? Would you buy a diesel car? What do you think of the latest campaign to raise awareness of the health implications linked to diesel engines? What do you think the government should do?
What are your views?
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We don't tolerate swearing, and reserve the right to remove any posts which we feel may offend others... let's keep it friendly!
Any way just think it will be good for the tax revenues, as both parties will want to hike up the cost of diesel on the pretext it is so damaging to our health and the hike is for our own good !! etc.,etc.,
The latest Euro 6 compliant diesel engines,emit far less pollutants than ever before;in fact less than petrol i understand.
So;for the last 10 to 15 years whilst petrol was assumed to be public enemy number 1,were no plans contemplated for petrol owners to pay a premium.Far from it in fact,petrol has for the most part,remained 2 to 3 pence cheaper per litre than diesel..
Can anyone explain the logic of this please...
Does anybody gauge the opportunity/cost of their decisions. Or is it just the motorist as an easy target?
Will Southampton ban the cruise ships? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jan/08/ports-pollution-cruising-ships-freight-sea
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We need a lead from manufacturers not just the so called experts
Think again and let's have a plan put forward properly.
Also you would have to pay more for your purchases as all delivery wagons are diesel as well. Be careful what you wish for.
I run a 2016 compliant vehicle that I have no plans to change and if I did change I would choose another Diesal
Press coverage is likely to unreasonably surpress the value Diesal cars / vans. Additionally most of Europes vehicles are Diesal
Now they have changed their mind and want us to change then they need to provide decent financial incentives to switch.
If they want to do simething constructive improve engine emmissions and resolve the issues with electric cars to get rid of diesel AND petrol over time. Lack of research and funding is, in my opinion the big issue. Banning diesel is like putting a sticking plaster on a broken leg.... more drastic and forward looking measures are needed.
Since it seems the major problem with diesel emissions occurrs in cities and towns, perhaps we would be better to decree electric cars and small electric vans for those areas whilst the rest of us are left alone to run our diesels?
Paraphrasing your post, it's a step way too far; without the affordable and viable technology it remains a lot of huff and puff!
For some reason people in this country pick on the chicken feed issues but totally miss or ignore the massive risks!
I've lived just a little too long to believe anything a politician says, nor an expert or professional.
Well said, by the way.
Improve public transport (ours is actually laughable down here in Cornwall) so as we do not need cars, problem solved!
I suppose it really depends on whether we firstly believe the data and secondly whether we are worried about our grandchildren's health and well being. Oh well, it takes away blaming smokers for all evil.
As for food and other 'scares', why do people think things do not move forward and thus thinking changes. The only constant is change!
Then there are the jet turbines of aircraft (and ships) - they are filthy too.
Any propulsion system that uses fossil fuel is filthy, it has to be, anything that burns something else creates a form of pollution.
They tried to eliminate coal-fired power stations - what with - Nuclear. The pollution that they create lingers for thousands of years!
Wind generators don't work for most of the time, because it is either not windy enough, or too windy!
In the UK, solar power is a joke and the joke is on us, because WE finance it!
The latest is, you have not got to sit in the sun, but because people are not getting enough sun we now have to add vitamin D , sorry but I don't even take any notice of them any more, they make lots of this up just so they can get more money out of us, dearer diesel prices and more expensive road tax, I have drove a diesel since 1986 and will never change to petrol or electric.
Before I retired I had my first diesel car - a Citroen C4 with very low emissions and very economical. Since then I have acquired a 1.1 petrol car and it smells of petrol whenever I switch on, oh and it has higher emissions too!
Yes, we were all told diesel was the way to go and then the price started to rocket and finally overtook petrol. Funny how it's so bad for the planet now - a load of nonsense if you ask me!
Doesn't anyone else smell a rat here?
Isn't this a case of manipulation of public opinion just as we've seen with Chelsea Tractors a few years ago. I've had two of them, both diesel. Why are we so easily spooked by reports (who employed those who wrote those reports?). It begins to sound like the butter/margarine thing over the last forty years. Now we have an aging population with all manner of diseases which, when truth is told, trace back to margarine.
If we're talking about diesel cars, may we also talk about heavy haulage trucks. I used to be a truck driver. Could use 200 gallons of diesel in nine hours. Often my tractor unit would be in use around the clock. At best that's six hundred gallons of diesel.
Linking 40,000 deaths a year to diesel fumes seems a leap to far. Would the authors of this report supply accurate, attested data? Of course not. Would they debate this claimed figure? Doubtful, unless there was something in it for them.
Fake news, me thinks! Add this to scares about sugar and salt (same people scare mongering), spurious alcohol limits (even the authors admit the figures were plucked out of the air) cholesterol (another scare) oh, I could go on ...
Somebody's on the make here, and it's at our expense!
I do think this is another attempt to penalise the motorist.
Years ago I was an agency truck driver. Often, when bored with tramping motorways I would ask for a van job in London. On those days which lasted about ten hours, I would burn fifty gallons of diesel. When on seriously heavy haulage, 100 tons plus, my tractor unit would return about three miles per gallon if I soft pedalled it. Every truck you see on the road is at best returning 7mpg.
On a Discovery Channel programme late last year it said the Queen Mary II has diesel engines of 18,000 litres! A truck you would see on the road has between 7 and 10 litres.
If we diesel car drivers are to be penalised yet again, what about heavy haulage, what about the QM II?
This reads to me like another case of soak the motorist. And I for one have had enough!
There is a problem with taxis, lorries act. although many buses now have duel control whereby electric kicks in once in the city but diesel takes over once outside.
The problem in cities with all diesel vehicles is the amount of time spent idling, which is when the particulates are at their highest level. Instead of banning all diesel cars, it would be more sensible to bring in particulate emissions tests twice a year and for wagons and buses too. Also ban all diesel cars from cities, that would be a start...
I'm a flinty old sceptic where government is concerned, or the State for that matter. They all behave like a Gardner 180 without a crankshaft - going nowhere and doing nothing. Quite unfit for purpose.
Now, just watch the BBC, Sky, CNN and observe the anti-diesel propaganda get ramped up. I seldom watch TV so won't see the circus.
Me, I'm hanging on to my diesel car. It's serviced at the right intervals, regularly hammered and it's 14 years old. Should I add it's a VW derivative?