Air pollution is the biggest environmental risk to health. A recent report from The Lancet Commission on pollution and health (2017), estimates that within the UK, air pollution is linked to 50,000 deaths each year.
Keeping the engine running while stuck in traffic or waiting to collect someone contributes to an increase of air pollutant levels. Schools, hospitals and bus stops in particular are hotspots, as:
- Idling is more likely to happen at those locations
- They have sensitive age groups, such as children and older people
Cars are being designed to help with reducing idling by automatically switching the engine off in traffic but for those of us who still have a car that doesn’t do this – we need to make it happen ourselves.
So let’s improve our air quality and make Thame a more pleasant place to walk, sit and cycle
What can we do ?
The action points from the Thame Green Living Plan are :
- A trial no idling day for Thame
- Investigate the feasibility of a prohibition on idling for cars, buses and trucks
To do this we need to :
- Build a team to move forward with this project
- Research where idling is a problem
- Test the air quality in idling hot spots
- Run campaigns to raise awareness
- Talk to bus companies
- Put up more signs
Thame has a few signs around but other towns have bigger ones !
Other towns have made the decision that idling is bad so they have put up big signs encouraging people to turn their engines off.
Different messages appear in each different town – which ones are most effective ?
