Do you support the ULEZ expansion?

@WhateverHappenedToMe I was struggling to come up with a reply to you but I'm going to go with what @Anxioys says because I can't think of a better one.

It's ridiculous. How do you imagine people without cars like me, or with elderly parents, like I used to have and many other people still do, get to hospital or other essential appointments?

@WhateverHappenedToMe 1 are you serious? In that instance, balancing a requirement not to pay 12.50 or go to work against a huge policy objective of improving the populations health is just nuts. I know people prioritise themselves and their own but this is silly.

Being driven about by their adult children all the time isn’t a sustainable solution in any case, surely. Elderly people who can’t drive would be better off downsizing to somewhere where as many things as possible can be accessed via mobility scooter or via short and affordable taxi/uber journeys.

"Hi boss

I know we're really busy at work, but I need to take a day's parental leave tomorrow. No, I don't have children but I do have parents, and I have to take my mother to the hospital tomorrow. No, she doesn't have a car anymore since ULEZ.

Anyway, I need to pick her up at 09:20 to get her there on time. Then I'll need to wait to take her home because she COULD be seen on time, but they might be running an hour late and then send her for tests. So it could easily be 13:00 by the time she's finished, then I need to take her home, and she may well be tired outs and distressed by everything that's happened, so I'll need to stay and make sure she's settled and has something to eat. By that time it'll be 15:30, and it's an hour's drive to the office.

Sorry, no-one else can do it. I'm the one with the ULEZ- compliant car."

Your parents can attend hospital appointments in your brother's Ulez-compliant car that he doesn't use that much.

So that's them sorted, isn't it?

Why are you fretting over other people being punished for essential journeys and not those people who need to do more essential things like breathing?

I said it was compliant. The point was that even if had been 18 months older, it would still have caused less pollution than a lot if other cars. And I'm sorry my father couldn't hobble a mile to the train station after he had half his foot amputated... incidentally my father never learnt to drive because he didn't need to living in London when younger. Then he got old... as did my mother.

I support traffic reduction for everyone not just a certain demographic. If everyone thought if their car journeys could be replaced by foot or bike, or by public transport... then that old car taking someone to a hospital appointment wouldn't be as much as a problem. If people bought small cars instead if 4x4s in city centres tbey would be less of a problem.

I just have a problem with people being punished for not being able to afford a better car for essential journeys.

Digging down into all that I discover your brother's car is compliant with Ulez.

So it's not a problem for your brother or your parents.

So why are you whining?

I have contributed even less than your brother to pollution in London because I haven't had a car since 2006 and attend my hospital appointments by public transport.

But it's not a competition, is it? And why does your parents' need to attend hospital supersede mine and my need to live somewhere with lower air pollution on a day-to-day basis which actively contributes to my need not to go to hospital?

Do you think that people who live near main roads do it out of choice or because it is all they can afford?

Do you think people who drive old bangers do it out of choice or because its all they can afford?

My brother has had the same car in London now for 16 years. Its got a relatively low mileage as he doesn't need it much... but what he does use it for can't be easily replicated with public transport. Most of the mileages these days are taking my parents to hospital appointments.

Being a 57 petrol, its a compliant car. But a couple of years older, it wouldn't be... but its probably contributed a lot less to pollution in London than a modern car driven a few miles daily!

Forgive my selfish concern about my lungs and the lungs of others, particularly the very young and the very old, whose number I wish to join one day.

but it gives those people who have not yet done so, time to adjust to the idea that their right to pollute the air does not trump my right to breathe it

You must not forget how we were lied to about diesel.

I don't think cars should be banned, but their use should be restricted and made more difficult with measures like restricted parking and congestion charging until people realise it isn't worth it.

Some people will take longer to come to that conclusion than others. Some people will be so rich that it won't bother them - but those people are unlikely to be driving non-compliant cars.

That's why the £12.50 a day charge for driving a non-compliant vehicle is fair. It hurts - I could think of something better to do with the money - but it gives those people who have not yet done so, time to adjust to the idea that their right to pollute the air does not trump my right to breathe it.

What's unfair about that?

Yes, asthma, low lung capacity, have annual checkups. It means I can't do exercise I want to and get out of breath quickly.

There's plenty of evidence of the harm it does to people living here. No need for one-off anecdotes.

Drinkable water and breathable air. What kind of lefty nutter wants that? More filth please.

I grew up in London too with chain smoking parents as an added extra. I'm fairly certain my lungs are fine...I've never had any health scares in relation to them. How do you know your lungs are damaged? Did a doctor tell you that?

Exactly. What kind of people want to force pollution, and the lower quality of life and lower life expectancy that entails, on others?

Of course there should be decent public transport put in place and cars should be banned rather than charged. The governments of the last 30 years have failed appallingly there.

All sort of schemes to limit car driving or parking in any way round here tend to be met with lots of handwringing concern for the "poor, elderly and disabled". Not emntoning that poorer, older and disabled people in London tend not to be car owners in the main due to the already higher fixed costs of car ownership and driving in London and of course the great alternatives (free transport for older and disbled people).

Of course there will always be edge cases of some from these groups being negatively hit - which is why there should be targeted help and exemptions.

Mine are. I grew up in London.

Some of the arguments remind me of the nutty end of the American right.

One of the sob stories in another thread was of a (possibly fictional) nurse who needed to travel between Swanley and Sidcup. It's only four miles! Wouldn't break a sweat on a bike.

15-20% of journeys under 1 mile are driven.

It's a load of old guff. Essex boys driving 100k range rovers pontificating that poor single mothers won't be able to take their kids to school. What this really is driver angst at being regulated at all. That explains all the paranoia about what is a local scheme in one part of the country.

It's not ok for anyone's kids to grow up with damaged lungs, my kids had to as they are now in their 20s

Are your children's lungs damaged? Is that a medical diagnosis?

Sad but true.

Nah, Mum has got herself into £40k debt for that SUV so she's dam well going to use it

Or maybe people could walk somewhere, apparently two-thirds of the country are overweight and the fastest growing fat group are the kids! Think of the drain on the NHS with all the illness that will cause. That's what we should be more worried about not whether someone can afford to take their polluting old banger out for the day. It's not ok for anyone's kids to grow up with damaged lungs, my kids had to as they are now in their 20s but hopefully if they have kids then their children will have cleaner air.