Driving in cities is the new smoking (Wired)

Passive smoking can help fix London’s filthy air pollution crisis – if choking cities are to clean up their act, air pollution will need to become as socially unacceptable as smoking indoors.

Are we finally waking up to the damage that air pollution causes? In years to come will polluting our air be thought of in way as we think of plastic waste, passive smoking or drink driving?

Around London parents and teachers are becoming concerned about air pollution near schools. Those that can afford it are moving to less polluted areas moving to less polluted areas. There’s also increasing social pressure against drivers zooming past schools and parents driving their diesel cars to do the daily drop-off. In a recent survey 80 per cent of respondents supported a ban on diesel cars close to schools.

To protect the children, barriers will be closed each day on the roads around four primary schools in Greenwich. In these densely populated areas most children live within easy walking distance of their school. Walking your child to school can be fun: as a parent, I renewed my skills at hop-scotch, avoiding the cracks in the pavement and playing counting games as we tallied up the number of lamp posts and red front doors that we passed.

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