To wonder what all the fuss is about ULEZ

[Winterday1991]

Hardly anyone is affected, only if you have a very old car. No, you should not be free to pollute the air by driving around in a polluting vehicle and so should have to pay a penalty to do so.

It annoys me as everyone agrees we need to tackle climate change, but no one wants the hit on their life/ change their lifestyles.

Just worked out how long it would be by public transport to Sunday’s fixture; 2.5 hours each way. However, we have to be there by 8.30am and the first bus isn’t until 9.00am! Honestly, OP really has no idea. T

The first penalty is £60 but they double it for each subsequent breach up to £480 😳 it resets to £60 after 90 days.
Confusing that the schemes are different though. I wonder if vehicle compliance rules vary significantly as well? An obvious difference is that motorcycles are exempt in Scotland.

I'd missed that part! 😳 I'll wait for the local newspaper headlines when someone gets caught out by that when the fines come in. We actually have to go into some of that area next weekend so we're glad they're not enforcing it yet.

Have you ever had a car?

I’ve decided op is a Tory troll trying to drum up support.

It’s not just trades that are affected. There’s a huge push to get people working back in the office at least 2/3 days a week. Just in time for the ULEZ stealth tax to take place.

electric cars aren’t better the for environment, they’re still manufactured, contain mineral from mines where child labour exists, still have tires that contribute to particulate matter, run on electricity from non-eco friendly sources and put a huge strain on the grid. It’s madness to scrap perfectly good cars that have already been made based on arbitrary rules.

meanwhile people are still burning rubbish in their gardens, and building waste. The council does nothing. The air quality near us was as bad as New York when they had that fire last month, but there was no general health warning. It’s just politics and money.

From what I see, here and elsewhere, very few people outside the affected area even know about the Scottish LEZs. It will be tourists/business travellers who get caught-out first, I bet.

Not relevant to the thread but how much money are working class people allowed to earn then?

If you're a shift worker, a hospital employee, a council employee - or any other traditionally low paid role that we all rely on daily - that works unsociable hours in London, could you explain how they are supposed to fund a ULEZ complaint car on their low wages which they would need as Khan's public transport isn't working when most shift workers need to get to or from work? @Winterday1991 Perhaps you could fund them as a lot of them are struggling just to pay their bills, clothe and feed their families?

A ban on ambulances and fire engines? End plane travel? And central heating? Industry? Public transport? Still good?

If the government really wanted to reduce emissions and the effect in climate change, they'd be preventing firms like Shein being sold in the UK. We'd be investing in local produce and production. We'd be lowering processed food production to save on factory emissions and the damage it does to humans.

The government are a bunch of hypocrites who don't give a flying fuck.

What they DO care about is money. Making it, and exploiting it. There are far better ways to improve climate change than going after individuals.

Tradespeople will just add this cost on to the price of the job, why should they pay?

If you require the service and the area they have to drive into incurs this cost it will be rightly passed on to you to pay.

@Winterday1991 Are you (Lady) Emily Thornberry? I seem to recall that she wasn't keen on white van drivers, aka tradesmen.

I'm right on the London border. Technically Surrey, but turn right at the end of the road and you're in London and therefore have to pay the charge.

DD is in school in a London borough. Buses are few and far between - at least once a week I end up giving her a lift because the bus hasn't turned up. And if she has cricket training, she physically can't get on the bus with her bag as it's too full and the driver won't let her on. So that's another day I give her a lift.

All things we took into account when we chose her school. But now potentially costing me £££s per week. And that's before you get into having to pay to attend or nearest hospital, use our nearest supermarket etc. And as I don't have a London postcode, I don't get to choose the mayor. So yes, a little bit hacked off!

This is just not true. Air quality is terrible and breached WHO safety limits in all areas of London, including the leafy outer suburbs.

What that means is lots more people with asthma, cancer, heart disease and dementia than would be the case if the air was clean. Also children with stunted lungs, babies being growth restricted in the womb, and over 40,000 people dying prematurely each year.

Why do people think this is ok? Why be content to breathe flirty air that could make you sick? Surely you want better than that?

It’s not acceptable to impose those massive health burdens on people. The ULEZ expansion is needed. That said, I would have liked to see the scrappage scheme be more generous.

Ours too, both 18 yr old cars and can’t afford to replace as no funds for this. Both diesel as that was supposed to be better at the time.

So you don't think reducing pollution is good? That's weird.

Ban holidays abroad

Are you proposing this? Can see why.

Do you have holidays, a car, travel out of walking cycling distance, grow your own, use only solar/wind energy, have a water butt, not heat your home, not use soap, bleach etc?

jotunn
You could keep what you have which is much better for the environment. Or learn how to do it yourself if it is so easy.

Otherwise suck up having to pay a lot more as costs go up and availability reduces.

So you are telling people to muck around with their gas boilers themselves? 🤔

The op said if she needed new plumbing she had to employ a tradesman. It is a good idea to employ someone for gas and electricity but plumbing does not automatically equal gas boiler. It could be replacing a tap or unblocking a toilet.

ULEZ isn't about climate change or the environment, it's nominally about air pollution. But scratch beneath the surface, even a little bit, and you'll realise it's not remotely about that either.

Diesel vehicles have lower CO2, HC, and CO emissions than petrol vehicles while petrol vehicles are have lower noxious gas and particle matter emissions. So diesels are "better" for the environement and petrols "better" for health. Of course this only considers tail pipe emissions and ignores other sources of air pollution from vehicles such as particle matter from break, tyre, and road wear. All of which are impacted by weight, driving style, road conditions, and the quality of the parts in question.

It gets even more absurd when your realise how vehicles manage tailpipe emissions. Since about 2009 for diesels and 2016 for petrols, vehicles been fitted with diesel / petrol particulate filters (DPFs / PPFs) which trap some exhaust gases in the filter, resulting in lower tailpipe emissions.

Sounds good, except PFs are designed to "regenerate" periodically. This is essentially a process where the vehicle raises the exhaust gas temperature to burn off all the trapped particles in the PF and expel them out the tailpipes.

Usually the conditions required for this to happen are only met during a motorway driving so the emissions aren't actually reduced, they're just stored and dumped all at once at a later date.

And this is before you even start to consider the wider issues of building new v extending the life cycle of vehicles and how that impacts on the environment and resources.

As I said ULEZ has sweet FA to do with the environment, climate change, or health.

People are generally reluctant to support environmental schemes at the cost of their own livelihoods, which is hardly a huge shock.

There’s more fuss about the expansion of the ULEZ than the original scheme because it affects a hell of a lot more people. Car ownership is also much higher in the suburbs.

The worst thing about it is that the evidence it’s going to make much difference to air quality is shaky at best.

This!

It is about health. All the major health charities are behind it. The health detriments from NO2 are not in doubt.

Particulates form tyres and brakes are also a problem and in time there will need to be fewer vehicles on the road to get all the health benefits needed. But that isn’t a politically or practically viable proposition at the moment, so we’re just getting ULEZ. Which, while not the whole solution, as you point out, will bring tangible benefits and reduced deaths and serious illness, so needs to happen.

Blame a Mr Grant Shapps for what is going on.